HE fourth night he was there again. By this time everything in the house, from the kettle in the kitchen to the carpet on the topmost landing, was aware that a one-armed man was hidden beneath the trees across the road, watching. The whole house was on the alert, listening and waiting—everybody, that is to say, except the people most concerned, who inhabited us. It seemed strange that they alone should be in ignorance. The grandfather clock did his best to tell them. “Beware; take care. Beware; take care,” he ticked as his pendulum swung to and fro. They stared him in the face and read the time by his hands, but they had no idea what he was saying.
What could it be that the watching man wanted? Whatever it was, he wanted it badly, for it was by no means pleasant to stand motionless for several hours when the November chill was in the air. Nor did he seem to find it pleasant, for every now and then he coughed and shook himself like a dog inside his coat, and sunk his chin deeper into his collar.
He had been there since six o'clock. He had seen the cook and the housemaid come up the area-steps and meet their respective sweethearts under the arc-light at the end of the square. There was only one other grown person in the house beside the little lady—Nurse; and Nurse had been in bed since the afternoon with a sick headache. He could not have known that. It was at precisely eight that he consulted his luminous wrist-watch, crossed the road, hesitated and raised the knocker very determinedly, as if he had only just arrived and had not much time to spare. Rat-tat-tat! The sound echoed alarmingly through the silence. The little lady dropped her sewing in her lap and listened. The sound was repeated. Rat-tat-tat! It seemed to say, “Come along. Don't keep me waiting. You've got to let me in sooner or later. You know that.”
“It can't be the postman at this hour,” she murmured, “and yet it sounds like his knock.”
Laying her work on the table beneath the lamp, she rose from her chair and descended. She opened the door only a little way at first, just wide enough for her to peer out, so that she could close it again if she saw anything disturbing.
“So you do live here!” The man outside spoke gladly. “I guessed it could be no one else the moment I saw that the house was no longer empty.”
She opened the door a few more inches. His tone puzzled her by its familiarity. His face had not yet come into the ray of light which slanted from the hall across the steps.
“You don't recognise me?” he questioned. “I called to let you know that I did fetch that taxi. It's been on my mind that you thought I deserted you. Taxi-cabs were hard to find in an air-raid.”
She flung the door wide. “Why it's——”
She didn't know how to call him—how to put what he was into words. He had been simply “the American officer”—that was how she had named him in talking with the children. He had been often remembered, especially during the fireside hour when in imaginary adventures he had been the hero of many stories. How brave she had made him and how often she had feared that he was dead! There were other stories which she had told only to herself, when the children were asleep and the house was silent. And there he stood on the threshold, with the same gallant bearing and the same eager smile playing about his mouth. “I've always been loved and trusted; you love and trust me, too”—that was what his smile was saying to her.