nd now he turned her to the library door. It was all
done quickly, and meantime he said to Dick, "Go back to bed," and Dick
perhaps not responding exactly, commented under his breath, "Good God!"
Raven followed Tira into the library, turned the key in the lock,
switched on the light in his reading lamp, and drew a chair to the
smouldering fire.

"Sit down," he said. "You must get warm."

He threw on cones and roused a leaping blaze. Then he made himself look
at her. He forgot Dick and Dick's shocked bewilderment. He was calm as
men are calm in an accomplished certainty. She had come. She did not
seem cold or in any sense excited, though she put her hands to the blaze
and bent toward it absently, as if in courtesy because he had given it
to her. As she sat, drawing long breaths that meant the ebbing of
emotion, he let his eyes feed on her face. She was paler than he had
seen her. There were shadows under her eyes, and the lashes on her cheek
looked incredibly long: a curved inky splash. Her hood had fallen back,
but she kept the blue cloak about her to her chin, as if it made a
seclusion, a protection even against him. But it was only an instant
before she withdrew her hands from the blaze and turned to him, with a
little smile. She began to speak at once, as if she had scant time,
either for indulging her own weakness or troubling him.

"You'll think it's queer," she said. "I've come here routin' you out o'
bed when you've give me that nice place up there to run away to."

Raven found himself ready to break out into asseverations that it was
the only natural thing for her to do. Where should she go, if not to
him?

"No," he said, the more gravely because he was counseling himself while
he answered her. "You did right. But," he added, "where's----?"

She understood. Where was the baby who always made the reason for her
flight?

"He's up there," she answered, with a motion of her hand toward the
road.

"In the hut?" he exclaimed. "You left him there?"

It seemed impossible.

"Yes," she said quietly, "all soul alone. I run out with him, same as I
always have. I run up there. I found the road all broke out. I wa'n't
surprised. I knew you'd do it. That is, I'd ha' known it if I'd thought
anything about it. An' I found the key an' started the fire. An' then I
knew I'd got to see you this night, an' I put him on the lounge an' set
chairs so's he wouldn't fall out, an' packed him round with pillers, an'
locked him