"I'm not fit to come in," she said.
And in truth she was not. She was caked with mud and dirt from head to foot, an appalling figure in the lamplight. The rain dripped from her hair, her sinister clothing, her whole person. She looked as if she must have hidden in a wet ditch. I gazed horror-struck at my speckless matting and pale Oriental rugs. I had never allowed a child or dog in the house for fear of the matting, except of course my poor Lindo, who had died a few months previously, and whom I had taught to wipe his feet on the mat.
A ghost of a smile twitched her grey mouth.
"Is not that the Times?" she said. "Spread it out four thick, and lay it on the floor."
I did so, and she stepped carefully on to it.
"Now," she said, standing on a great advertisement of a universal history—"now that I am not damaging the furniture, pull yourself together and think. How am I to get to the stable? I can't stop here."
She could not indeed. I felt I might be absolutely powerless to get the muddy footprints out of the matting. And no doubt there were some in the houseplace too.
"If I go through the scullery, I may be seen," she said, the water pattering off her on to the newspaper. "So lucky you take in the Times; it's printed on such thick paper. Where does that window look out?"
She pointed to the window at the farther end of the room.
"On to the garden."