ONE:Alice Keeling had arrived at that stage of convalescence after her influenza when there is dawn on the wreck, and it seems faintly possible that the world will again eventually prove to contain more than temperature thermometers and beef-tea. She was going to leave Bracebridge with her mother next day for the projected fortnight at Brighton, and had tottered up and down the gravel path round the garden this morning for half an hour to accustom herself to air and locomotion again. While she was out, she had heard the telephone bell ring inside the house, a sound that always suggested to her nowadays an entrancing possibility, and this was confirmed when Parkinson came out to tell her that Mr Silverdale would like to speak to her. At that she ceased to totter: her feet positively twinkled on their way to the little round black ear of the machine. And the entrancing possibility was confirmed. Might Mr Silverdale drop in for the cup that cheered that afternoon? And was she better? And would she promise not to be naughty and get ill again? Indeed, she was vastly better on the moment, and said down the telephone in a voice still slightly hoarse, Im not naughty: me dood,{199} in the baby-dialect much affected by her and Mr Silverdale."I can't bear you not to have me," she sobbed. "It's cruel. It ought to be arranged. People ought to understand."
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ONE:During breakfast Doctor Bronson unfolded some of the plans he had made for the disposal of their time, so that they might see as much as possible of Japan.
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ONE:And then he remembered the sudden growth of beard, and decided that it was useless to pursue that last thin thread of suspicion in his mind. For several seconds he said nothing at all, and the Clockwork man seemed to take advantage of the pause in order to wind himself up to a new pitch of coherency.
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ONE:Her face spoke passionate thanks. "That's all I can ask!" she said, whispered "When you go--keep the plain road,"--and vanished.
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ONE:I understand, he said. No telling tales out of school.They had three or four hours to spare before sunset, and at once set about the business of sight-seeing. Their first visit was to the temple on the island, and they were followed from the landing by a crowd of idle people, who sometimes pressed too closely for comfort. There was an avenue of trees leading up to the temple, and before reaching the building they passed under a gateway not unlike those they had seen at the[Pg 406] temples in Kioto and Tokio. The temple was not particularly impressive, as its architectural merit is not of much consequence, and, besides, it was altogether too dirty for comfort. There was quite a crowd of priests attached to it, and they were as slovenly in appearance as the building they occupied. In the yard of the temple the strangers were shown the furnaces in which the bodies of the priests are burned after death, and the little niches where their ashes are preserved. There were several pens occupied by the fattest pigs the boys had ever seen. The guide explained that these pigs were sacred, and maintained out of the revenues of the temple. The priests evidently held them in great reverence, and Frank intimated that he thought the habits of the pigs were the models which the priests had adopted for their own. Some of the holy men were at their devotions when the party arrived, but they dropped their prayer-books to have a good look at the visitors, and did not resume them until they had satisfied their curiosity.
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