He had admitted receiving his quarter, and he had frightened me so badly that I would not offer him more. He backed away and slid through the hedge, and then he ran.
However, I did not immediately reënter the house. With my cape wrapped round me I stood outside, wondering what to do.
It was too late to go anywhere. Alf locked up the Sailor’s Rest at the respectable hour of ten, and every cottage in the village was dark by half-past. Even before that they would have given me scant welcome, for I could tell from the remarks repeated by the boy that I had fallen heir to the suspicion in which they held Mattie. The judge’s home, my natural refuge, was full of sickness and of gossips, of bandages and hostility. I was furious with the judge for breaking his arm. Why didn’t he install a self-starter?
I considered the possibility of finding my way to the Winkle-Man’s or to Mrs. Dove’s, my old laundress, but as I never had taken them into my confidence before, it was literally too late to begin. I could not imagine living in the town longer than to-morrow morning if I was found in the position of begging lodging from door to door. And I had not actually made up my mind to abandon the place altogether; the instinct for home-making was too strong.
The night was damp and foggy, but still I lingered in the yard.
The old house fairly yawned with peace. Such a quiet, innocent, companionable house! The five pine-trees swept the roof with the rhythm of the sea in their misty branches.
My chance glance clung to them.
There was a red light in the tops of the trees.
The red light came from the skylight—the skylight of my house—in the roof of the loft. The red light was shining from the little secret room.
Could it be a fire? No flames crackled up through the rotten shingles.... Some one—? There had not been a sound to-night.