“I’ll write to Miss Battersby. I’ll write to the Provost, and to Miss Pettigrew. I’ll write to Hilda’s mother. I’ll get Selby-Harrison to write, too. I’ll----” Lalage was gone. I rang the bell savagely and told the nurse to get my pens, ink, and paper. I thoroughly agreed with Titherington. Lalage’s proceedings must be stopped at once. CHAPTER XV I wrote the first page of a letter to the Archdeacon and expressed myself, so far as I could in that limited space, strongly. I gave him to understand that Lalage must be either enticed or forced to leave Ballygore. I intended to go onto a description of the sort of things Lalage had been doing, of Titherington’s helplessness and Vittie’s peril. But I was brought up short at the end of the first page by the want of blotting paper. The nurse brought me two pens, a good sized bottle of ink, several quires of paper and about fifty envelopes. Then she went out for her afternoon walk, and I did not discover until after she had gone that I had no blotting paper. The only course open to me was to wait, as patiently as I could, until the first page of the letter dried. It took a long time to dry, because I was very angry when I began to write and had pressed heavily on the pen. The crosses of my t’s were like short broad canals. The loops of the e’s, Fs and such letters were deep pools, and I had underlined one word with some vigour. I waved the sheet to and fro in the air. When I got tired of waving it I propped it up against the fender and let the heat of the fire play on it.