"A head of department, working quietly in his room in Whitehall on a summer afternoon, is not accustomed to being disturbed by the near-by and indubitable sound of a revolver shot." Chapter 1, pg. 1

"The front door was wide open, framing distant cuckoo calls, while beyond the weedy gravel drive, beyond the clipped descending lawn and the erect hedge of raspberry-and-creamy spiraea, rose up the sea, a silvery blue, too thin and transparent to be called metallic, a texture as of skin-deep silver paper, rising up and merging at some indeterminate point with the pallid glittering blue of the midsummer sky." Chapter 2, pg. 15

"He became gradually and sadly aware that she did not share his new-found liberty. He had not set her free. She was still in love with him and indeed still behaved as if she were his mistress. Her time consisted of seeing him, waiting, seeing him...