CHAPTER XVII
DR. TALLIS PRESCRIBES
FOR hours Beresford had been sitting looking straight in front of him. It was past noon; yet the breakfast-things still lay on the table, just as the porter had brought them up three hours before. Twice the man had entered to clear away, only to be sent away by a curt shake of the head. The coffee was cold in the pot, the eggs and bacon lay a sickly-looking mess bound together by a grey film of chilled fat.
On the corner of the table lay a pile of money, notes, silver and copper. Was it only that morning that he had counted it with eager fingers and tingling pulses? Eleven pounds four shillings and three-pence.
The figures seemed to have burned themselves into his brain. For hours he had sat watching them. They were everywhere. They stared back at him from the opposite wall, they blinked at him from the ceiling, the clock ticked them into his ears, and they had eaten themselves indelibly into his brain.
Did sailors feel like that when adrift in an open boat with the water-cask empty? He wondered. Presently his gaze left the opposite wall and lighted
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