Foster replied that he did not mind this, since he had promised Miss Austin to bring the packet and she was a friend of his, but although he studied the man's face saw nothing to indicate that he was interested.
"Are you staying here?" he asked, and when Foster told him that he was going back as soon as he could, resumed: "If you had been staying, I would have been glad to take you about the town; but, after all, there's nothing much in the way of amusement going on. I might arrange to meet you in the afternoon, but must now finish some letters for the Continental mail."
Foster said he could not wait and went out, feeling that the other was pleased to get rid of him. Graham was obviously a small importer of provisions, and he could not see why the girl in Edinburgh had warned him to post the packet. Carmen's reason for sending such a man something she valued was impossible to discern.
This, however, was not Foster's business, and after lunch he caught a train to Hexham and, finding he could get no farther, spent the night in the old Border town.
VIII
AN OFFER OF HELP
It rained and the light was going when Foster sat in a window seat of the library at the Garth. He was alone, but did not mind this. The Featherstones treated him as one of the family; he was free to do what he liked, and Alice had just gone away, after talking to him for half an hour. Lighting a cigarette, he mused and looked about.
Outside, the firs rose, black and dripping, above the wet drive. Between their trunks he saw the river, stained with peat, brawling among the stones, and the streaks of foam that stretched across a coffee-colored pool. Then a few boggy fields ran back into the mist that hung about the hills. A red fire threw a soft glow about the library. The room was somewhat shabby but spacious. Rows of old books in stained bindings, which Foster thought nobody read, faded into the gloom at its other end. It was warm and quiet, and he found it a comfortable retreat.
He had now been a fortnight at the Garth and did not want to leave. Featherstone and his wife obviously wished him to stay; he was grateful for the welcome they had given him, and felt as if he belonged to the place. What Alice thought was not clear, but she treated him with a quiet friendliness that he found singularly pleasant. By and by he began to wonder why Lawrence had not written, particularly as he had brought away a bag of his. Foster had one like it, and as both had its owner's initials stamped outside, he imagined the baggage agent had been deceived by the F when he affixed the check. Lawrence's bag, however, had his name engraved upon the lock.
Foster sat down in a big chair by the fire, and imagined he fell asleep, because it had got nearly dark without his noticing it when the opening of the door roused him. Looking up, he saw Featherstone come in with a letter in his hand. The post did not arrive until the afternoon.