no choice but to obey.

"I should have been in peril of having my ear nicked," he said, under
his breath, as he crossed the threshold. "It's just as well that I kept
my tongue between my teeth and concluded not to mind Quinton Edge's
business." He closed the door.

It had grown quite dark, and the fire was making its last stand for
life. Only one small piece of wood remained unconsumed, and the flame
licked at it lazily, like a beast of prey hanging over a carcass, gorged
to repletion and yet unwilling to give over employment so delicious.
Suddenly the girl rose to her feet and went to one of the long windows
that looked out upon the street. The casement shook and rattled under
the gale's rough hand. Hardly knowing what she did, she flung the window
wide open.

In an instant she seemed to have been transported into the midst of the
tumult, her face lashed by windy whips, her eyes blinded by fine
particles of frozen snow, her ears deafened by the multitudinous voices
of the storm sprites shrieking to their fellows. Something in her
nature, fierce and untamed, leaped forth to meet the tempest.
Intoxicated by the strong wine of its fury, she flung out her arms, half
fearing, half hoping that she might be swept away, whirled like some
wild sea-bird, into the heart of the madness. A strong hand pulled her
back.

"Esmay!" shrieked a voice in her ear. "Esmay!"

Loudly as the call must have been uttered, it came to her, as though
from a great distance, thin and of an infinite littleness. Yet she
allowed herself to be drawn back into the room, and made no demur to the
closing of the window.

It was a tall, finely built woman of thirty or thereabouts who stood
beside her--a woman with a dark, passionate face shaded by a mop of
raven hair as coarse as a horse's mane. "Esmay!" she said again, with an
accent of wondering reproach.

The girl stood silent, motionless for a moment; then, with a swift
intake of her breath:

"Don't be angry, Nanna, but something is going to happen. I've got to
laugh or to cry--I don't know which."

It was a laugh, low but genuine, and full of a silver trickle of sound.
The elder woman caught up the girl impetuously into a close embrace.

"My dear! my dear! is it really you? I can't believe it. After these
dreadful three months in which you have hardly said as many words. It
would be a miracle, if there were any saints in Doom to work one."

She drew away for a moment, her eyes ablaze with e