storm
that seemed at once to fill the house.

Her first thought was that it was her husband come back, but before she
could clear her eyes from the snow which had rushed tumultuously in, he
had thrown off his outer covering and she found herself face to face
with a man in whose powerful frame and cynical visage she saw little to
comfort her and much to surprise and alarm.

"Ugh!" was his coarse and rather familiar greeting. "A hard night,
missus! Enough to drive any man indoors. Pardon the liberty, but I
couldn't wait for you to lift the latch; the wind drove me right in."

"Was--was not the door locked?" she feebly asked, thinking he must have
staved it in with his foot, which was certainly well fitted for such a
task.

"Not much," he chuckled. "I s'pose you're too hospitable for that." And
his eyes passed from her face to the comfortable firelight shining
through the sitting-room.

"Is it refuge you want?" she demanded, suppressing as much as possible
all signs of fear.

"Sure, missus--what else! A man can't live in a gale like that,
specially after a tramp of twenty miles or more. Shall I shut the door
for you?" he asked, with a mixture of bravado and good nature that
frightened her more and more.

"I will shut it," she replied, with a half notion of escaping this
sinister stranger by a flight through the night.

But one glance into the swirling snowstorm deterred her, and making the
best of the alarming situation, she closed the door, but did not lock
it, being now more afraid of what was inside the house than of anything
left lingering without.

The man, whose clothes were dripping with water, watched her with a
cynical smile, and then, without any invitation, entered the
dining-room, crossed it, and moved toward the kitchen fire.

"Ugh! ugh! But it is warm here!" he cried, his nostrils dilating with an
animal-like enjoyment, that in itself was repugnant to her womanly
delicacy. "Do you know, missus, I shall have to stay here all night?
Can't go out in that gale again; not such a fool." Then with a sly look
at her trembling form and white face he insinuatingly added, "All alone,
missus?"

The suddenness with which this was put, together with the leer that
accompanied it, made her start. Alone? Yes, but should she acknowledge
it? Would it not be better to say that her husband was upstairs? The man
evidently saw the struggle going on in her mind, for he chuckled to
himself and called out quite boldly: