nearly four o'clock
Presently my thoughts drifted into quite a different channel . All recollection of the day 's sport , of the pretty widow I had just talked to , and of the impression she had left upon my mind , faded completely . I was thinking of someone else , someone close beside me , almost touching me , and yet -- Neither of us spoke . It was nearly four o'clock . The afternoon was quickly closing in . Away beyond the woods which sloped upward in the western distance until they touched the sky , the sun 's blood-red beam pierced the slowly-rising mist rolling down into the valley where the pollards marked the winding course of the narrow , sluggish stream . Over brown woods and furrowed fields it cast a curious glow .