I

“Away beyond the line of dark houses there is a sound like the call of the sea after a storm—passionate, solemn, strong. I lean far out of the window in the warm, still night air. Down below, in the Mews, the little lamp is singing a silent song. It is the only glow page 179 of light in all this darkness. Men swilling the carriages with water; their sharp, sudden exclamations; the faint, thin cry of a very young child, the chiming of a bell from the church close by—these are the only other sounds, impersonal, vague, intensely agitating…”