He found some dry matches and led me to the telephone. Something in the way I dripped, or because I padded across the floor in one stocking foot, made him a trifle more human.
"I'll close the curtains and light the log fire," he said. "Things are bad enough without your taking pneumonia."
The moment I took the receiver off the hook I knew the wires were down somewhere. I sat for a moment, then I opened the door. Roger was on his knees lighting the fire. He looked very thin, with his clothes stuck to him, and the hair that he wore brushed over the bare place had been washed down, and he looked almost bald.
"Roger," I said, with the calmness of despair, "the wires are down!"
"Hush," said Roger suddenly. "And close that door."
It seemed rather foolish to me at the time. Since they had followed us, they'd know perfectly well that if Roger was there I was.
In walked Maisie Brown and about a dozen other people!
I can still hear the noise they made coming in, and then a silence, broken by Maisie's voice.
"Why, Roger!" she said.
"Awfully surprising to see you here—I mean, I expect you are surprised to see me here," said Roger's voice, rather thin and stringy. "The fact is, I was going by, and—it was raining hard, and I——"