n, she closed the door, but did not lock
it, being more afraid now of what was inside the house than of anything
left to threaten her from 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 up-stairs. The
man evidently saw the struggle going on in her mind, for he chuckled to
himself and called out quite boldly:

"Never mind, missus; it's all right. Just give me a bit of cold meat
and a cup of tea or something, and we'll be very comfortable together.
You're a slender slip of a woman to be minding a house like this. I'll
keep you company if you don't mind, leastwise until the storm lets up
a bit, which ain't likely for some hours to come. Rough night, missus,
rough night."

"I expect my husband home at any time," she hastened to say. And
thinking she saw a change in the man's countenance at this she put on
quite an air of sudden satisfaction and bounded toward the front of the
house. "There! I think I hear him now," she cried.

Her motive was to gain time, and if possible to obtain the opportunity
of shifting the money from the place where she had first put it into
another and safer one. "I want to be able," she thought, "of swearing
that I have no money with me in this house. If I can only get it into my
apron I will drop it outside the door into the snowbank. It will be
as safe there as in the bank it came from." And dashing into the
sitting-room she made a feint of dragging down a shawl from a screen,
while she secretly filled her skirt with the bills which had been put
between some old pamphlets on the bookshelves.

She could hear the man grumbling in the kitchen, but he did not follow
her front, and taking advantage of the moment's respite from his none
too encouraging presence she unbarred the door and cheerfully ca