Chapter 9 Part 1

June 19th

Once safely shut into my room, I opened these pages and prepared to go on with that part

of the day's record which was still left to write.

For ten minutes or more I sat idle with the pen in my hand, thinking over the events

of the last twelve hours.

When I last addressed myself to my task, I found a difficulty in proceeding with it which

I had never experienced before.

In spite of my efforts to fix my thoughts on the matter in hand, they wandered away with

the strangest persistency in the one direction of Sir Percival in the count, and all the interest

which I tried to concentrate on my journal centered instead in that private interview between

them which had been put off all through the day and which was now to take place in the

silence and solitude of the night.

In this perverse state of my mind, the recollection of what had passed since the morning would

not come back to me, and there was no resource but to close my journal and to get away from

it for a little while.

I opened the door which led from my bedroom into my sitting room and having passed through

pulled it to again to prevent any accident in case of draft with the candle left on the

dressing table.

My sitting room window was wide open and I leaned out listlessly to look at the night.

It was dark and quiet, neither moon nor stars were visible.

There was a smell like rain in the still heavy air and I put my hand out of window.

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