'John!'
'Yes! God bless my soul, what a night!' He reached the door, put down his umbrella with difficulty, and dragged his bag into the passage. Then, in a moment, his coat was off and he had thrown his arm round her and the child. It seemed to him that she was curiously quiet and restrained. But she kissed him in return, drew him further within the little passage, and shut the outer door, shivering.
'The kitchen's warm,' she said, at last.
She led him in, and he found the low-ceiled room bright with fire and lamp, the table spread, and his chair beside the blaze. Kneeling down, she tried to unlace his wet boots.
'No, no!' he said, holding her away—'I'll do that, Phoebe. What's wrong with you?—you look so—so queer!'
She straightened herself, and with a laugh put back her fair hair. Her face was very pale—a greyish pallor—and her wonderful eyes stared from it in an odd, strained way.
'Oh, I'm all right,' she said; and she turned away from him to the fire, opening the oven-door to see whether the meat-pie was done.
'How have you kept in this weather?' he said, watching her. 'I'd no notion you'd had it so bad.'
'Oh, I don't know. I suppose I've had a chill or something. It's been rather weariful.'
'You didn't tell me anything about your chill.'