"Only a thunder shower—it will soon be over," he said.
But the rain went on and on. Good Lord, were the very forces of nature conspiring to keep him there all night?
It was half-past one by the clock on the mantelpiece, and the rain was still pelting on the pavement of the street outside with a sound like that of an army in retreat. Stowell was feeling alternately hot and cold, and the voice within him was saying, "Must you go? You would be drenched through before you got back from Mrs. Quayle's, and the girl would be as wet in getting there as if you had dropped her into the sea." After a few minutes more he said,
"Bessie, I'm afraid we shall have to give up the idea of going to Mrs. Quayle's."
"Yes?"
"But you can stay here, and I can go over to the Mitre."
"No, no."
"It's nothing—only two yards away."
Johnny Kelly, the boots, slept on the ground floor—he could get him up without ringing the bell. Of course he would have to tell the old man some cock-and-bull story—that he had lost his key or something.
"But it's the very thing. I wonder I didn't think of it before."