The stranger made no reply, but still stood clinging to the door, with a strange and horrible expression of mingled wonder and awe in his face.
"'Tis a lunatic!" whispered Ruth to her husband.
"Sir," said Jacob, "what do you want here to-night?"
The stranger found voice at length, but it was weak and timorous as that of a frightened child.
"We were on the train, my wife and I, with our three little ones,—on the train snowed in five miles back,—and we ask, if you will give it, a night's lodging, it being necessary that we should reach home without paying for our keeping at the hotel. My wife and children are outside the door, and nearly frozen, I assure you."
Then Ruth's warm heart showed itself.
"Come in," she said. "Keep you?—of course we can. Come in and warm yourselves."
A sweet woman, with one child in her arms, and two shivering beside her, glided by the man into the room. They were immediately the recipients of the good old lady's hospitality; she dragged them at once, one and all, to the warmest spot beside the hearth.
Still the man stood, aimless and uncertain, clutching the door and swaying to and fro.
"Why do you stand there at the door? Why not come in?" said Jacob Newell. "You must be cold and hungry. Ruth—that's my wife, Sir—will get you and your family some supper."