“Why, are you going to keep house for me, Mrs. Cox?” he asked.
“If you please, sir. I heard that you had been in the village, looking for some one. I am sorry that I was away. There is no one else who would come to you.”
“So I discovered,” he remarked, a little grimly.
“No one else,” she went on, “would come to you because of Mr. Fentolin. He does not wish to have you here. They love him so much in the village that he had only to breathe the word. It was enough.”
“Yet you are here,” he reminded her.
“I do not count,” she answered. “I am outside all these things.”
Hamel gave a little sigh of satisfaction.
“Well, I am glad you could come, anyhow. If you have something for dinner, I should like it in about half an hour.”
He climbed the narrow stairs which led to his bedroom. To his surprise, there were many things there for his comfort which he had forgotten to order—clean bed-linen, towels, even a curtain upon the window.
“Where did you get all the linen up-stairs from, Mrs. Cox?” he asked her, when he descended. “The room was almost empty yesterday, and I forgot nearly all the things I meant to bring home from Norwich.”