His hand was on her mouth, but that was needless,
for her tongue clove to its roof, and her power of
utterance was gone. ’I have been looking
for you many nights. Is the house empty?
Answer me. Is any one inside?’
She could only answer by a rattle in her throat.
‘Make me a sign.’
She seemed to indicate that there was no one there.
He took the key, unlocked the door, carried her in,
and secured it carefully behind them.
It was a chilly night, and the fire in the widow’s
parlour had burnt low. Her strange companion
placed her in a chair, and stooping down before the
half-extinguished ashes, raked them together and fanned
them with his hat. From time to time he glanced
at her over his shoulder, as though to assure himself
of her remaining quiet and making no effort to depart;
and that done, busied himself about the fire again.
It was not without reason that he took these pains,
for his dress was dank and drenched with wet, his
jaws rattled with cold, and he shivered from head
to foot. It had rained hard during the previous
night and for some hours in the morning, but since
noon it had been fine. Wheresoever he had passed
the hours of darkness, his condition sufficiently
betokened that many of them had been spent beneath
the open sky. Besmeared with mire; his saturated
clothes clinging with a damp embrace about his limbs;
his beard unshaven, his face unwashed, his meagre
cheeks worn into deep hollows,—a more miserable
wretch could hardly be, than this man who now cowered
down upon the widow’s hearth, and watched the
struggling flame with bloodshot eyes.
She had covered her face with her hands, fearing,
as it seemed, to look towards him. So they remained
for some short time in silence. Glancing round
again, he asked at length:
‘Is this your house?’
‘It is. Why, in the name of Heaven, do
you darken it?’
‘Give me meat and drink,’ he answered
sullenly, ’or I dare do more than that.
The very marrow in my bones is cold, with wet and hunger.
I must have warmth and food, and I will have them
here.’
‘You were the robber on the Chigwell road.’
‘I was.’
‘And nearly a murderer then.’
’The will was not wanting. There was one
came upon me and raised the hue-and-cry’, that
it would have gone hard with, but for his nimbleness.
I made a thrust at him.’
‘You thrust your sword at him!’ cried
the widow, looking upwards. ’You hear this
man! you hear and saw!’
He looked at her, as, with her head thrown back, and
her hands tight clenched together, she uttered these
words in an agony of appeal. Then, starting to
his feet as she had done, he advanced towards her.
‘Beware!’ she cried in a suppressed voice,
whose firmness stopped him midway. ’Do
not so much as touch me with a finger, or you are lost;
body and soul, you are lost.’
