She shrank back against the wall quickly, in womanly fear of a strange man.
"No, thank you!" she exclaimed in answer.
"But yes!" said the man. "It rains. You are getting an illness, Signora."
The faint light showed her that she would be safe enough in accepting the offer. The man was evidently a peasant from the mountains, and he was certainly not young. His vast black cloak was turned back a little by his arm and showed the lining of green flannel and the blue clothes with broad silver buttons which he wore.
"Thank you," she said, for she was glad of the shelter, and she stood still under the enormous blue cotton umbrella, with its battered brass knob and its coloured stripes.
"But I will accompany you," said the man. "It is certainly not beginning to finish. Apoplexy! It rains in pieces!"
"Thank you. I am not going far," said Gloria. "You are very kind."
"It seems to be the act of a Christian," observed the peasant.
She began to move, and he walked beside her. He would have thought it bad manners to ask whither she was going. Through the torrents of rain they went on in silence. In less than five minutes she had found the door of Griggs's house. To her intense relief it was still open, and there was the glimmer of a tiny oil lamp from a lantern in the stairway. Gloria felt for the money in her pocket. The man did not wait, nor speak, and was already going away. She called him.
