– that he, sleepless, untiring, was on guard, ready, at an instant's warning, to spring to her aid, should she need protection. The thought was mightily soothing. The shed was cold. The fur coat was warm. In five minutes he was sleeping peacefully as any babe.
When he awoke it was with the light of a big horn lantern in his eyes, and in his ears the snapping of wood.
She was there – stooping beside the heaped faggots, breaking off twigs to fill the lap of her up-gathered blue gown; the shimmery silk of her petticoat gleamed greenly. He was partly hidden by a derelict bicycle and a watering-can.
He hardly dared to draw breath.
Composedly she broke the twigs. Then like a flash she turned towards him.
"Who's there?" she said.
An inspiration came to him – and this, at least, was not flat or obvious. He writhed into the darkness behind a paraffin cask, slipped out of his fur coat, and plunged his hands in the dust of the coal.
"Don't be 'ard on a pore cove, mum," he mumbled, desperately rubbing the coal dust on to his face; "you wouldn't go for to turn a dawg out on a night like this, let alone a pore chap outer work!"
Even as he spoke he admired the courage of the girl. Alone, miles from any other house, she met a tramp in an outhouse as calmly as though he had been a fly in the butter.
"You've no business here, you know," she said briskly. "What did you come for?"
"Shelter, mum – I won't take nothing as don't belong to me – not so much as a lump of coal, mum, not if it was ever so!"
She turned her head. He almost thought she smiled.
"But I can't have tramps sleeping here," she said.
"It's not as if I was a reg'lar tramp," he said, warming to his part as he had often done on the stage in his A.D.C. days. "I'm a respectable working-man, mum, as 'as seen better days."
"Are you hungry?" she said. "I'll give you something to eat before you go if you'll come to the door in five minutes."
He could not refuse – but when she was gone into the house he could bolt. So he said —
"Now may be the blessing! It's starving I am, mum, and on Christmas Eve!"
This time she did smile: it was beyond a doubt. He had always thought her smile charming. She turned at the door, and her glance followed the lantern's rays as they pierced the darkness where he crouched.
The moment he heard the house door shut, he sprang up, and lifted the fur coat gingerly to the wood-block. Flight, instant flight! Yet how could he present himself at New Romney with a fur coat and a face like a collier's? He had drawn a bucket of water from the well earlier in the day; some would be left; it was close by the back door. He tiptoed over the snow and washed, and washed, and washed. He was drying face and hands with a pocket-handkerchief that seemed strangely small and cold when the door opened suddenly, and there, close by him, was she, silhouetted against the warm glow of fire and candles.
"Come in," she said; "you can't possibly see to wash out there."
Before he knew it her hand was on his arm, and she had drawn him to the warmth and light.
He looked at her – but her eyes were on the fire.
"I'll give you some warm water, and you can wash at the sink," she said, closing the door and taking the kettle from the fire.
He caught sight of his face in the square of looking-glass over the sink tap.
Was it worth while to go on pretending? Yet his face was still very black. And she evidently had not recognised him. Perhaps – surely she would have the good taste to retire while the tramp washed, so that he could take his coat off? Then he could take flight, and the situation would be saved from absolute farce.
But when she had poured the hot water into a bowl she sat down in the Windsor chair by the fire and gazed into the hot coals.
He washed.
He washed till he was quite clean.
He dried face and hands on the rough towel.
He dried them till they were scarlet and shone. But he dared not turn around.
There seemed no way out of this save by the valley of humiliation. Still she sat looking into the fire.
As he washed he saw with half a retroverted eye the round table spread with china and glass and silver.
"As I live – it's set for two!" he told himself. And, in an instant, jealousy answered, once and for all, the questions he had been asking himself since August.
"Aren't you clean yet?" she said at last.
How could he speak?
"Aren't you clean yet?" she repeated, and called him by his name. He turned then quickly enough. She was leaning back in the chair laughing at him.
"How did you know me?" he asked angrily.
"Your tramp-voice might have deceived me," she said, "you did do it most awfully well! But, you see, I'd been looking at you for ages before you woke."
"Then good night," said he.
"Good night!" said she; "but it's not seven yet!"
"You're expecting someone," he said, pointing dramatically to the table.
"Oh, that!" she said; "yes – that was for – for the poor man as had seen better days! There's nothing but eggs – but I couldn't turn a dog from my door on such a night – till I'd fed it!"
"Do you really mean – ?"
"Why not?"
"It's glorious!"
"It's a picnic."
"But?" said he.
"Oh – well! Go if you like!" said she.
It was not only eggs: it was all sorts of things from that stores box. They ate, and they talked. He told her that he had been bored in town and had sought relief in solitude. That, she told him, was her case also. He told her how he had heard her come in, and how he had hated to take either the obvious course of following her to the kitchen, saying "How do you do?" and retiring to New Romney; or the still more obvious course of sneaking away without asking her how she did. And he told her how he had decided to keep watch over her from the bicycle shed. And how the coal-black inspiration had come to him. And she laughed.
"That was much more literary than anything else you could have thought of," said she; "it was exactly like a book. And oh – you've no idea how funny you looked."
They both laughed, and there was a silence.
"Do you know," he said, "I can hardly believe that this is the first meal we've ever had alone together? It seems as though – "
"It is funny," she said, smiling hurriedly at him.
He did not smile. He said: "I want you to tell me why you were so angel-good – why did you let me stay? Why did you lay the pretty table for two?"
"Because
