gone for the
summer!"

They moved less cautiously now, but not until they reached the dining
room and saw the covered chairs and drawn curtains did they feel fully
assured. He thrust aside the portieres and noted that the blinds were
closed and the windows boarded. They could move quite safely now.

The mere sense of being under cover--of no longer feeling the beat of
the rain upon them--was in itself a soul-satisfying relief. But there
was still the dank cold of their soggy clothes against the body. They
must have heat; and he moved on to the living rooms above. He pushed
open a door and found himself in a large room of heavy oak, not draped
like the others. He might have hesitated had it not been for the sight
of a large fireplace directly facing him. When he saw that it was
piled high with wood and coal ready to be lighted, he would have
braved an army to reach it. Crossing the room, he thrust his candle
into the kindling. The flames, as though surprised at being summoned,
hesitated a second and then leaped hungrily to their meal. Wilson
thrust his cold hands almost into the fire itself as he crouched over
it.

"Come here," he called over his shoulder. "Get some of this quickly."

She huddled close to him and together they let their cold bodies drink
in the warm air. It tingled at their fingers, smarted into their
faces, and stung their chests.

"Nearer! Nearer!" he urged her. "Let it burn into you."

Their garments sent out clouds of steam and sweated pools to the tiles
at their feet; but still they bathed in the heat insatiably. He piled
on wood until the flames crackled out of sight in the chimney and
flared into the room. He took her by the shoulders and turned her
round and round before it as one roasts a goose. He took her two hands
and rubbed them briskly till they smarted; she laughed deliciously the
while, and the color on her cheeks deepened. But in spite of all this
they couldn't get very far below the surface. He noticed the dripping
fringe of her skirts and her water-logged shoes.

"This will never do," he said. "You've got to get dry--clear to your
bones. Somehow a woman doesn't look right--wet. She gets so very
wet--like a kitten. I'm going foraging now. You keep turning round and
round."

"Till I'm brown on the outside?"

"Till I come back and see if you're done."

She followed him with her eyes as he went out, and in less than five
minutes she heard him calling for her. She hurried to th