The woman reiterated her offers of a seat by the fire in the coffee-room.
"The men won't mind ye, zir," she said, "heaps of 'em are Frenchies like yourself, and I'll tell 'em you ain't a spying on 'em."
"It's no more than five mile to Chelwood," said the man blandly, "and maybe you get a better shakedown there."
"A five-mile tramp," growled Martin-Roget, whose wrath seemed to have spent itself before the hopelessness of his situation, "in this fog and gloom, and knee-deep in mud.... There'll be a sovereign for you, woman," he added curtly, "if you can give me a clean bed for the night."
The woman hesitated for a second or two.
"Well! a zovereign is tempting, zir," she said at last. "You shall 'ave my son's bed. I know 'e'd rather 'ave the zovereign if 'e was ever zo tired. This way, zir," she added, as she once more turned toward the house, "mind them 'urdles there."
"And where am I goin' to zleep?" called the man from Chelwood after the two retreating figures.
"I'll look after the man for you, zir," said the woman; "for a matter of a shillin' 'e can sleep in the coffee-room, and I'll give 'im 'is breakfast too."
"Not one farthing will I pay for the idiot," retorted Martin-Roget savagely. "Let him look after himself."
He had once more reached the porch. Without another word, and not heeding the protests and curses of the unfortunate man whom he had left standing shelterless in the middle of the yard, he pushed open the front door of the house and once more found himself in the passage outside the coffee-room.