"
And she gave a little sigh, like a person trying to reproduce in her mind
some delightful but too evanescent impression.
I looked at my host; from crimson his face had turned perfectly livid, and
he breathed as if some one were squeezing his windpipe.
No more was said about the matter. I vaguely felt that a great danger was
threatening. To Oke or to Mrs. Oke? I could not tell which; but I was aware
of an imperious inner call to avert some dreadful evil, to exert myself, to
explain, to interpose. I determined to speak to Oke the following day, for
I trusted him to give me a quiet hearing, and I did not trust Mrs. Oke.
That woman would slip through my fingers like a snake if I attempted to
grasp her elusive character.
I asked Oke whether he would take a walk with me the next afternoon, and he
accepted to do so with a curious eagerness. We started about three o'clock.
It was a stormy, chilly afternoon, with great balls of white clouds rolling
rapidly in the cold blue sky, and occasional lurid gleams of sunlight,
broad and yellow, which made the black ridge of the storm, gathered on the
horizon, look blue-black like ink.
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