Dusk was coming on when she heard a knock at the sitting-room door.
“Come in!” she called out from where she knelt by her trunks. Then she heard no more, and began to think she must have been mistaken, when the knock was repeated. “Come in!” she cried a second time; and then she heard the door open, and a man’s tread in the next room.
She rose from her knees, went in to the sitting-room, and found herself face to face with Aubrey Cooke, who was standing in his usual stooping attitude, looking paler and plainer than ever, with some parcels in his hands.
He was shy, nervous, and stood there without a word to say for himself. But the sight of a familiar face in this desolate, cheerless place had restored Annie in a moment to life and animation.
“Mr. Cooke!” she cried, as she went forward and shook hands with him. “How kind of you! How did you know I was coming? I am so very glad to see you!”
Her face had recovered its light, her eyes were sparkling with their old brightness. Aubrey got back his self-possession as he looked at her, and began slowly laying down his parcels upon the table and taking more from his pockets.
“Miss Taylor told me you were coming, and my unfailing instinct told me that, being a lady, you would have forgotten to have all the arrangements necessary for your comfort made before your arrival. Now you shall see whether I have forgotten how to do marketing. There is the twopenny cottage, there is the superior souchong, and there is the oleomargarine—the very best. And that is for you.”
He gave her a little box, which she opened and found to contain ferns and gardenias. She sat down and handled them lovingly, with the simple pleasure of a child, and, when she looked up, she found Aubrey raking out the coals of the extinct fire with a poker.
“Never mind; leave it alone. It is out; and, if I ring and make the girl light it again, she will only fill the room with smoke. I am not very cold.”
Indeed for the moment she had forgotten that she was cold; but she shivered now and then.