eBooks Base 2000

Damaris suffered the shock
of such now; and into what further jungles of cheerless speculation she
might have been projected it is impossible to say, had not persons and
events close at hand claimed her attention.
The Grand Hotel at St. Augustin is situated upon a long narrow
promontory, which juts out into the sea at right angles to the main trend
of the coast-line. It faces east, turning its back upon the little
town--built on the site of a Roman colonial city, originally named in
honour of the pagan Emperor rather than the Christian Confessor and
ascetic. Mediaeval piety bestowed on it the saintly prefix, along with a
round-arched cathedral church, of no great size, but massive proportions
and somewhat gloomy aspect.
From the terrace garden and carriage drive, immediately in front of the
hotel, the ground drops sharply, beneath scattered pines with undergrowth
of heather, wild lavender, gum-cistus, juniper, mastic and myrtle, to the
narrow white beach a hundred feet below. Little paths traverse the rough
descent.


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