Her face was gathering its pinks again.
“Won’t your honour come and toast at the parlour-fire?” she said timidly. “’Tis raw and cold where you stand.”
“I know it, my dear. The wind was a file in my teeth as I walked from ‘Delsrop.’”
“Walked! Your honour has walked?”
“And why not, Betty? That is a rare febrifuge—a night-tramp in a north-easter.”
She looked up at him strangely, as she undid the hasp of the half-door of the bar and held the panel open. He paused on the threshold.
“You are alone, you say?”
“All but for Jim, who nods in the kitchen. I was moving to lock up when your honour came.”
“Do so now, and send the lad to bed. I want you to myself, Betty.”
He did not wait for an answer; but walked past the girl and into the little warm room beyond her. And here he stood looking down upon the red glow of the fire.