ey got to the house, and said if he would
go boldly into the dining-room, where they detected, as they approached,
one lamp scantly shining from the else darkened windows, she would beard
the lioness in her den, by which she meant the cook in the kitchen, and
see what she could get him for supper. Apparently she could get nothing
warm, for when a reluctant waitress appeared it was with such a chilly
refection on her tray that Alford, though he was not very hungry,
returned from interrogating the obscurity for eidolons, and shivered at
it. At the same time the swing-door of the long, dim room opened to
admit a gush of the outer radiance on which Mrs. Yarrow drifted in with
a chafing-dish in one hand and a tea-basket in the other. She floated
tiltingly towards him like, he thought, a pretty little ship, and sent a
cheery hail before.

"I've been trying to get somebody to join you at a premature
Welsh-rarebit and a belated cup of tea, but I can't tear one of the
tabbies from their cards or the kittens from their gambols in the
amusement-hall in the basement. Do you mind so very much having it
alone? Because you'll have to, whether you do or not. Unless you call me
company, when I'm merely cook."

She put her utensils on the table beside the forbidding tray the
waitress had left, and helped lift herself by pressing one hand on the
top of a chair towards the electric, which she flashed up to keep the
dismal lamp in countenance. Alford let her do it. He durst not, he
felt, stir from his place, lest any movement should summon back the
eidolons; and now in the sudden glare of light he shyly, slyly searched
the room for them. Not one, fair or foul, showed itself, and slowly he
felt a great weight lifting from his heart. In its place there sprang up
a joyous gratitude towards Mrs. Yarrow, who had saved him from them,
from himself. An inexpressible tenderness filled his breast; the tears
rose to his eyes; a soft glow enveloped his whole being, a warmth of
hope, a freshness of life renewed, encompassed him. He wished to take
her in his arms, to tell her how he loved her; and as she bustled about,
lighting the lamp of her chafing-dish, and kindling the little
spirit-stove she had brought with her to make tea, he let his gaze dwell
upon every pose, every motion of her with a glad hunger in which no
smallest detail was lost. He now believed that without her he must die,
without her he could not wish to live.

"Jove," Rulledge broke