ed
floor, the kitchen table, the blank windows, and the blackened range, in
which the fire was out, came desolately into view. There was a sense as
of deep darkness of the night outside around everything.

A large white cat lying on a red-striped cushion on a chair by the
chilly hearth stretched itself and blinked its yellow eyes toward the
two intruders.

"Let me fill this," said Girard, taking the pitcher from her--a rather
large, clumsy majolica article with a twisted vine for a handle--and
carrying it over to the faucet. The intimacy of the hour and the scene
emphasized the more the punctilious aloofness of this enforced
companionship.

Dosia leaned back against the table, while he let the water run, that it
might grow cold. It sounded in the silence as if it were falling on a
drumhead. The moment--it was hardly more--seemed interminable to Dosia.
The white cat, jumping up on the table, put its paws on her shoulders,
and she leaned back very absently, and curved her throat sideways, that
her cheek might touch him in recognition. Some inner thought claimed
her, to the exclusion of the present; her eyes, looking dreamily before
her, took on that expression that was indescribably gentle, intolerably
sweet.

Dosia has been ill described if it has not been made evident that to
caress, to _touch_ her, seemed the involuntarily natural expression of
any feeling toward her. Something in the bright, tendril-curling hair,
the curve of her young cheek, the curve of her red lips, her light, yet
round form, with its confiding, unconscious movements, made as
inevitable an allure as the soft rosiness of a darling child, with
always the suggestion of that illusive spirit that dared, and retreated,
ever giving, ere it veiled itself, the promise of some lovelier glimpse
to come.

The water had stopped running, and Dosia straightened herself. She
raised her head, to meet his eyes upon her. What was in them? The color
flamed in her face and left her white, although in a second there was
nothing more to see in his but a deep and guarded gentleness as he came
toward her with the pitcher.

"I'll take it now, please," she said hurriedly.

"Won't you let me carry it up for you?"

"Thank you, it isn't necessary. I'll go along, if you'll wait and turn
out the light."

"Very well. You're sure it's not too heavy for you?" he asked anxiously,
as her wrists bent a little with the weight.

"Oh, no, indeed," said Dosia quickly, turning