* * * * *
When I opened my eyes I found myself in a wainscoted room, with large beams running across the ceiling.
I particularly noticed these beams, possibly because they were the first objects that met my eyes, for I was lying in bed. Spotlessly white were the bedclothes, sweet-smelling flowers were placed about the room, while through the open casement window I could see a stretch of placid water with boats passing up and down, while the hillside in the distance was covered with yellow fields of ripening grain.
"Where am I?" I asked myself, and "Why am I here?" And gradually I remembered the incidents that had taken place during the eventful period since I left the camp at Lostwithiel.
I tried to raise myself, but a dull pain in my shoulder and an utter feeling of weakness prevented me, and I had perforce to lie still and think.
Presently the door was quietly opened and a woman came softly into the room.
She was middle-aged, with calm, sweet-natured features, and her linen frills and ruffs were as white as snow. She noticed that I was awake, and coming over to my bedside, she asked me how I felt.
I replied that I hardly knew what to say, and then asked where I was, and what was I doing here?
"The Emma Farleigh has left," she told me.
"Left," I repeated blankly. "When?"