Gloria heard him walking to and fro, as he made his preparations for the unexpected journey. She, on her part, could not sit still. She felt as if she were in one of her nightmare dreams from which she could not wake. And again she felt as if she were going mad.
A sweet, homely household sound aroused her from this morbid mood. It was the singing of the tea-kettle over the fire. A happy thought came to her. She would play housewife for David Lindsay this once before leaving the cottage. She had spent days enough in the little place to know where all the stores were kept.
So she went first to the corner cupboard with the glass door, and opened it and found the little black tea-pot and the tin tea-cannister, and made the tea and set it to draw.
Then she drew out the little red-stained pine table, found the white cloth and the buck-handled knives and forks and the plated spoons in the drawer, and arranged them, then took the cups and saucers and plates from the corner cupboard, and finally she went out to the “safe” in the shed, to which in her childhood’s days she had so often followed Dame Lindsay, and found bread, butter, milk and cold meat, all of which she brought and put upon the table.
When her self-assumed task was completed, she sat down to wait, but felt too restless to sit long. Soon she arose and began to pace up and down the floor, when David Lindsay descended the ladder stairs, equipped for his journey, and carrying a large, black oil-skin bag in his hand.
“Ah! why did you weary yourself with this work, lady? I should soon have done it for you,” he said, as he glanced at the completed preparations for a meal.
“Well, I wanted to do it. It is not the first time I have set the table for you and me, is it, David Lindsay? Don’t you remember our little dinners, cooked with a driftwood fire on the beach? Don’t you remember the flat stone we used to have for a table, and the crash towel for a tablecloth?”
“Do I not?” he asked, as a warm smile irradiated his face. This was the first time she had seen him smile since her sudden appearance on the island.
“Come and sit down, then, and I will pour out the tea.”
They placed themselves at the table, upon which she had already set the tea-pot. They made some pretence of eating and drinking, and then Gloria inquired: