with greyness; and my eyes wandered to the mullioned bow-window, beyond
whose panes, between whose heavy stonework, stretched a greyish-brown
expanse of sore and sodden park grass, dotted with big oaks; while far off,
behind a jagged fringe of dark Scotch firs, the wet sky was suffused with
the blood-red of the sunset. Between the falling of the raindrops from the
ivy outside, there came, fainter or sharper, the recurring bleating of the
lambs separated from their mothers, a forlorn, quavering, eerie little cry.

I started up at a sudden rap at my door.

"Haven't you heard the gong for dinner?" asked Mr. Oke's voice.

I had completely forgotten his existence.




3


I feel that I cannot possibly reconstruct my earliest impressions of Mrs.
Oke. My recollection of them would be entirely coloured by my subsequent
knowledge of her; whence I conclude that I could not at first have
experienced the strange interest and admiration which that extraordinary
woman very soon excited in me. Interest and admiration, be it well
understood, of a very unusual kind, as she was herself a very unusual kind
of woman; and I, if you choose, am a rather unusual kind of man. But I can
explain that better anon.

This much is certain, that I must have been immeasurably surprised at