Only now and then
came a breath of wind to make the sleeping mists rise and fall, rise and
fall.
It was late in the afternoon, and getting dark; the mist hid everything
from my eyes, and I had no sun to show the way. I drifted about for
hours on the way home, but there was no hurry. I took the wrong road
with the greatest calmness, and came upon unknown places in the woods.
At last I stood my gun against a tree and consulted my compass. I marked
out my way carefully and started off. It would be about eight or nine
o'clock.
Then something happened.
After half an hour, I heard music through the fog, and a few minutes
later I knew where I was: quite close to the main building at Sirilund.
Had my compass misled me to the very place I was trying to avoid? A
well-known voice called me--the Doctor's. A minute later I was being led
in.
My gun-barrel had perhaps affected the compass and, alas, set it wrong.
The same thing has happened to me since--one day this year. I do not
know what to think. Then, too, it may have been fate.
XXVI
All the evening I had a bitter feeling that I should not have come to
that party. My coming was hardly noticed at all, they were all so
occupied with one another; Edwarda hardly bade me welcome. I began
drinking hard because I knew I was unwelcome; and yet I did not go away.
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