After wavering unsteadily for a moment, she turned, stumbled, righted herself, and would have gone racing back up the stair had not a heavy hand fallen upon her shoulder and a gruff, kindly voice said:
“Beg pardon, Miss Cordelia, are you in trouble?”
Surprised at hearing herself called by her own name, she turned about to find herself staring into the face of James, the bundle man.
For a few seconds she wavered between pause and flight. There was, however, such a light of kindness in the man’s eyes as could not be questioned. So, stepping back from the stairs, she said:
“Yes, I am in trouble. The—the man; I think he was following me.”
“He’d do well not to follow you too far this way, if he meant you any harm.” The bundle man shook his powerful frame, then glanced at the fires.
“Wha—what are they?” Cordie stammered. “Where are we?”
“Don’t you know?” he looked incredulous. “Them’s the boilers that heat the buildin’. I suppose you never wondered before how this huge building got heated? Well, that’s how. Them’s the boilers that does it.
“Sometimes I come down here to sit after hours,” he half apologized. “The boys down here that tends to the stokers let me come. I like it. It’s the nearest thing to the sea that one finds about the buildin’. You see, it’s sort of like a ship’s hold where the stokers work.”
“Oh, you belong to the sea.”