And Mr. Oke merely shook his head mournfully.
Sometimes in the early autumn twilights, when the white mists rose from the
park-land, and the rooks formed long black lines on the palings, I almost
fancied I saw him start at the very trees and bushes, the outlines of the
distant oast-houses, with their conical roofs and projecting vanes, like
gibing fingers in the half light.
"Your husband is ill," I once ventured to remark to Mrs. Oke, as she sat
for the hundred-and-thirtieth of my preparatory sketches (I somehow could
never get beyond preparatory sketches with her). She raised her beautiful,
wide, pale eyes, making as she did so that exquisite curve of shoulders and
neck and delicate pale head that I so vainly longed to reproduce.
"I don't see it," she answered quietly. "If he is, why doesn't he go up to
town and see the doctor? It's merely one of his glum fits."
"You should not tease him about Lovelock," I added, very seriously. "He
will get to believe in him."
"Why not? If he sees him, why he sees him. He would not be the only person
that has done so"; and she smiled faintly and half perversely, as her eyes
sought that usual distant indefinable something.
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