with his feet towards
her lay Mr. Rickman.

Her first feeling was of relief, protection, deliverance. She stood
looking at him, finding comfort in the sheer corporeality of his
presence. But as she looked at him that emotion merged in concern for
Mr. Rickman himself. He lay on his back in a deep sleep; one arm was
flung above his head, the hand brushing back his damp hair; his
forehead was beaded with the thick sweat of exhaustion. He must have
been lying so for hours, having dropped off to sleep when the night
was still warm. He had thrown back his coat and loosened his
shirt-collar, and lay undefended from the draught that raked the
floor. The window at this end of the room had been left open too, and
the fire was almost dead.

Lucia looked doubtfully at the window. She knew its ways; it sagged on
its hinges and was not to be shut without the grating shriek of iron
upon stone. She looked, still more doubtfully, at Mr. Rickman. His
face in the strange light showed white and sharp and pathetically
refined.

And as she looked her heart was filled with compassion for the
helpless sleeper. She moved very softly to the fireplace, where an oak
chest stood open stored with wood; she gathered the embers together
and laid on them a few light logs. The first log dropped through the
ashes to the hearth, and Mr. Rickman heaved a deep sigh and turned on
his side.

Lucia knelt there motionless, till his breathing assured her that he
still slept. With swift noiseless movements she went on building up
the dying fire. The wood crackled; a little flame leapt up, and Mr.
Rickman opened his eyes. For a moment he kept them open, fixed in
sleepy wonder on the woman who knelt beside him by the hearth. He was
obscurely aware that it was Lucia Harden, but his wonder was free from
the more vivid and disturbing element of surprise; for he had been
dreaming about her and was still under the enchantment of his dream.
Never had she seemed more beautiful to him.

Her head was bowed, her face turned from him and shaded by her hair;
and with her hands she tended a dying flame. Her shawl had slipped
from her shoulders, and he saw the delicate curve of her body as she
knelt; it was overlaid by her hair that fell to her hips in a loose
flat braid. He closed his eyes again, feigning abysmal sleep. He kept
guard over his breath, over his eyelids, lest a tremor should startle
her into shame-faced flight. Yet he knew that she had risen and that
her