Then he undressed and swam about for nearly twenty minutes, so determined was he not to carry home a microbe. He even struck out into the middle, and braved any sharks that might be yet unbreakfasted. Then he made his toilet again, swallow-tail and all, carefully washed the clothes he had taken off, and laid them on the grass to dry.
A man he knew, coming down to the water with his towels over his shoulder, met him on the way to the cottage and stared amazedly.
“You’re fairly late home, old chap,” he said; “where in the world have you been?”
Pip only shook his head and pushed on. He was far too unhappy to stay and explain.
[266]
]CHAPTER XXIV.
“IN THE MIDNIGHT, IN THE SILENCE OF THE SLEEP TIME.”
“Have I not trodden a weary road,
Saint, my Saint?
And where, at last, shall be my abode,
Oh, my Saint?”
But Meg only had it very lightly, or those two poor human hearts could not have borne their misery. She was not half so ill as Essie had been; she was not delirious at all, and she never went near to the great wide sea whose cold waves had washed up to the little baby feet.