As she spoke, she was turning to go back into the outhouse, with a sign to him to follow her.  But even as she did so, another thought must have struck her, for she shut the door and turned back again.

“No,” she said, decisively, “of course you don’t want to see anything so much as the outside of this gloomy old house.  Don’t think me ungrateful; I am not, but”—­she came a little nearer to Max, so that she could whisper very close to his ear—­“if Granny knew that I’d let a stranger into the place while she was away, I should never hear the last of it; and—­and—­when she’s angry I’m afraid of her.”

Max felt a pang of compassion for the girl.

“If you are afraid of her being angry,” said he, “you had better let her see me and hear my explanation.  I can make things right with her.  I have great powers of persuasion—­with old ladies—­I assure you; and you don’t look as if you were equal to a strife of tongues with her or with anybody just now; and I’d forgotten; I’ve brought something for you.”

Max took from the pocket of his overcoat the little flat bottle filled with brandy with which he had provided himself; but the girl pushed it away with alarm.

“Don’t let Granny see it!” she whispered.

“All right.  But I want you to taste it; it will do you good.”

She shook her head astutely.

“I am not ill,” she said, shortly, “and I don’t know that I should take it if I were.  I see too much of those things not to be afraid of them.  And, now, sir, will you go?” After a short pause she added, in an ominous tone—­“while you have the chance.”

Max still lingered.  He had forgotten his curiosity, he had almost forgotten what had brought him to the house in the first instance.  He did not want to leave this girl, with the great, light-blue eyes and the scarlet lips, the modest manner and the moving voice.

When the silence which followed her words had lasted some seconds, she turned from him impatiently, and leaving him by the door, crossed the little room quickly, opened one of the two wooden doors which stood one on each side of the fireplace, revealing a cupboard with rows of shelves, and took from the bottom a few chips of dry wood, evidently gleaned from the wharf outside, a box of matches and part of a newspaper, and dropping down on her knees on the hearth, began briskly to rake out the ashes and to prepare a fire.

Max stood watching her, divided between prudence, which urged him to go, and inclination, which prompted him to stay.

She went on with her work steadily for some minutes, without so much as a look behind.  Yet Max felt that she was aware of his presence, and he knew also, without being sure how the knowledge came to him, that the girl’s feeling toward himself had changed now that she was no longer alone in the house with him.  The constraint which might have been expected toward a person of the opposite sex in the strange circumstances, which had been so entirely absent from her manner on their first meeting, had now stolen into her attitude toward him.