'There 'asn't been a telegram that I know of, and I 'ave received no instructions.' I lit my pipe and sat for twenty minutes reading a weekly paper.

Then I got up and looked at the family portraits.

The moon coming through the lattice invited me out-of-doors as a cure for my anxiety.

It was after eleven o'clock, and I was still without any knowledge of my next step.
It is a maddening business to be screwed up for an unpleasant job and to have the wheels of the confounded thing tarry.
Outside the house beyond a flagged terrace the lawn fell away, white in the moonshine, to the edge of the stream, which here had expanded into a miniature lake.

By the water's edge was a little formal garden with grey stone parapets which now gleamed like dusky marble.