“We are much obliged to you,” I said, and as I turned to her I caught sight of a man’s face peering through the half closed door of a dark room across the passage.
“I’ll do my best for you,” she answered. “Dry yourselves by the fire. I’ll be back in a moment.” With that she went out, and I heard her turn the key softly upon us.
It might mean nothing; but—well, I did not tell Volna.
CHAPTER VIII
WHAT HAPPENED IN THE COTTAGE
VOLNA walked up to the wood fire, took off her fur turban, shook it, and laughed.
“Were you ever as wet before? I never was.”
“I wonder if the woman can find you something to put on while the clothes are dried. What do you make of her?”
“She about fits the place,” she replied, glancing round the room.
A wooden bench, a couple of wooden armchairs, a square table and a black oak chest of drawers with some unpainted shelving over it for crockery, pots, and pans, constituted the furniture; and for decoration a couple of crude coloured prints, scriptural in subject and grimy with age, hung over the fireplace with a piece of broken looking glass on a string between them.
“Rough,” I said, in answer to her look.