the possibility of one to the back; no lawn either, but on the other side
of the sandy dip, which suggested a filled-up moat, a huge oak, short,
hollow, with wreathing, blasted, black branches, upon which only a handful
of leaves shook in the rain. It was not at all what I had pictured to
myself the home of Mr. Oke of Okehurst.

My host received me in the hall, a large place, panelled and carved, hung
round with portraits up to its curious ceiling--vaulted and ribbed like the
inside of a ship's hull. He looked even more blond and pink and white, more
absolutely mediocre in his tweed suit; and also, I thought, even more
good-natured and duller. He took me into his study, a room hung round with
whips and fishing-tackle in place of books, while my things were being
carried upstairs. It was very damp, and a fire was smouldering. He gave the
embers a nervous kick with his foot, and said, as he offered me a cigar--

"You must excuse my not introducing you at once to Mrs. Oke. My wife--in
short, I believe my wife is asleep."

"Is Mrs. Oke unwell?" I asked, a sudden hope flashing across me that I
might be off the whole matter.

"Oh no! Alice is quite well; at least, quite as well as she usually is. My
wife," he added, after a minute, and in a very decided tone, "does not
enjoy very good health--a nervous constitution. Oh no! not at all ill,
nothing at all serious, you know. Only nervous, the doctors say; mustn't be
worried or excited, the doctors say; requires lots of repose,--that sort
of thing."

There was a dead pause. This man depressed me, I knew not why. He had a
listless, puzzled look, very much out of keeping with his evident admirable