"Goodnight," repeated Jane Allister.
"I am going with you," said Oswald.
She resisted the suggestion at first, saying she could find her way back quite well; but Oswald quietly carried his point.
He closed the door behind him, and offered his arm. She took it at once, thanking him in a staid old-fashioned manner. Mrs. Benn drew the door open and looked after them.
"Arm-in-arm!" ejaculated that lady. "And he bending of his head down to her to talk! Who on earth can she be?--coming after him to his house--and stopping up there in the parlour--and keeping up of the tea-things! It looks uncommon like as if he had took on a sweetheart. Only----So it's you at last, is it, Joe Benn! And what do you mean by stopping out like this?"
The concluding sentences were addressed to a respectable-looking man who approached the door. It was Joseph Benn, her husband, and the faithful servant of the firm.
"I couldn't make more haste," he quietly answered.
"Not make more haste! Don't tell me. Mr. Oswald Cray expected you were home an hour ago."
"Mr. Oswald Cray will be quite satisfied that I have not wasted my time when I tell him where I've been. Is he upstairs?"
"No, he is not," she sharply answered. "Satisfied, indeed! Yes, he looked satisfied when he saw me going up to wait upon him in this guise, and to show in his company? And me waiting a good mortal hour for his dinner-things, which he forgot was up which couldn't have happened if you'd been at your post to wait at table. You go and stop out again at his dinner-time, Joe Benn."