Evening came, but there was no chance of a swim in the sea. He would have to wait until the morrow or the day following. Whatever he did, he would have to avoid awaking suspicion.
Several times during the night he awoke and listened. The wind was still swishing through the trees, and the patter of rain could be distinctly heard against the window.
"If Mrs. Tuke knew," he said to himself, "she would say Providence was interposing to prevent me putting an end to my useless life."
He lay in bed an hour longer than he would have done had the weather been fine. "It is of no use getting up till breakfast-time," he reflected.
He heard the postman's rat-tat-tat while he was dressing, and wondered if there were any letters for him.
He came slowly and listlessly down the stairs. Another day of weariness and mental distress stretched out before him. "I am only prolonging the agony," he said to himself, as he took his lonely seat at the head of the table.
Then his eye rested on a large envelope by the side of his place, with a blue stamp in the corner.
He was alert in a moment. "An American letter," he said, half aloud, and his thoughts flew off to Madeline Grover unconsciously. The address, however, was in a man's handwriting—there could be no doubt about that.
He tore open the envelope quickly and mechanically, and turned to the signature at the end of the letter. "Seaward and Graythorne," he read, and a look of perplexity came into his eyes.