We have had several nice quiet days here alone since the Pomeroys left. There has scarcely been a sound in the hotel, except when the wind pounces upon the window-frames in the sudden, annoying way that it has here. Twice I have got up, to endeavour to fasten the window, and each time have lost a toothbrush. It shakes my nerves completely when the windows clatter suddenly through the night. Yesterday as we sat in the dining-room I heard a crunching noise.
'Can that be another motor?' I exclaimed. 'I hope not. It is a class of people I do not wish to associate with any further.'
'It is a motor,' called Cecilia, who sat next the window. 'A scarlet motor, too.'
In another moment the door opened, and Sir Archibald Maxwell Mackenzie came in.
'Dear me, Sir Archibald,' said I, 'what has brought you back again so soon? You will have a nice quiet time here now, for we are the only people in the hotel.'
He seemed strangely put out and unlike himself, and passed my chair without even replying to my speech. I could see that he was thoroughly unnerved, very much in the same state that I was when we came back from that terrible drive. It is no wonder; motoring must tell on the strongest nerves in time.
Later in the day Cecilia came in smiling. 'Sir Archibald has gone away again,' she said. 'He has not made a long stay this time!'
'No,' I observed, 'that sort of nervous excitement grows on people. I know myself that if I once begin to get excited over a bazaar, for instance, I get off my sleep, and worn out in no time. I suppose he has rushed off farther into the moor.'
'He has gone to Torquay,' remarked Cecilia, 'quite an easy run from here.'