"That it would fit me exactly. And I need something warm and comfortable for the long walks. But it's a real lady's jacket, and----"
"All the more reason why you should have it," he interrupted, laughing. "Don't come back without the jacket, now mind. Good-night, and a pleasant journey."
With a joyous exclamation she stooped to kiss his hand, but he evaded the caress.
When her footsteps had died away in the darkness, he took the lamp and went into the greenhouse, which was her private apartment.
The fire still smouldered on the hearth, but the room was icily cold and comfortless. A stray flake or two whirled through the holes in the roof, for outside a gentle dusting of snow had begun to fall.
"Why doesn't she doctor the laths?" he thought, and resolved that the next morning he would come and lay boards over the weak places. He climbed on one of the boxes and tested with a tap the glass roofing. Then he understood why Regina preferred to sleep half in the open air. The leaden framework of the panes had become rotten and brittle. At his mere touch the whole decrepit roof rattled and trembled in all its joints. Any attempt to mend it would bring it down altogether.
"It's a positive sin to allow her to be housed like this," he said to himself.
He went back to his room and drew from under his sheets as many of his feather mattresses as he could do without, and carried them, with one of his pillows, to her wretched resting-place. He carefully made up a bed, and then threw her horse-cloth over it, so that not a scrap of the bedding was visible.
"That will make her open her eyes," he thought, "when, worn out, she comes to throw herself on her pallet." And well satisfied with his evening's work, he returned to his papers.
The next morning, when he awoke, his walls shone with the dazzling reflection of the snow. In the night the world had arrayed itself in the garb of winter.