She stood still. "No; only for today, at least. I wanted to see it,
and Mr. van der Luyden had the fire lit and the windows opened, so that
we might stop there on the way back from church this morning." She ran
up the steps and tried the door. "It's still unlocked--what luck!
Come in and we can have a quiet talk. Mrs. van der Luyden has driven
over to see her old aunts at Rhinebeck and we shan't be missed at the
house for another hour."

He followed her into the narrow passage. His spirits, which had
dropped at her last words, rose with an irrational leap. The homely
little house stood there, its panels and brasses shining in the
firelight, as if magically created to receive them. A big bed of
embers still gleamed in the kitchen chimney, under an iron pot hung
from an ancient crane. Rush-bottomed arm-chairs faced each other
across the tiled hearth, and rows of Delft plates stood on shelves
against the walls. Archer stooped over and threw a log upon the embers.

Madame Olenska, dropping her cloak, sat down in one of the chairs.
Archer leaned against the chimney and looked at her.

"You're laughing now; but when you wrote me you were unhappy," he said.

"Yes." She paused. "But I can't feel unhappy when you're here."

"I sha'n't be here long," he rejoined, his lips stiffening with the
effort to say just so much and no more.

"No; I know. But I'm improvident: I live in the moment when I'm happy."

The words stole through him like a temptation, and to close his senses
to it he moved away from the hearth and stood gazing out at the black
tree-boles against the snow. But it was as if she too had shifted her
place, and he still saw her, between himself and the trees, drooping
over the fire with her indolent smile. Archer's heart was beating
insubordinately. What if it were from him that she had been running
away, and if she had waited to tell him so till they were here alone
together in this secret room?

"Ellen, if I'm really a help to you--if you really wanted me to
come--tell me what's wrong, tell me what it is you're running away
from," he insisted.

He spoke without shifting his position, without even turning to look at
her: if the thing was to happen, it was to happen in this way, with the
whole width of the room between them, and his eyes still fixed on the
outer snow.

For a long moment she was silent; and in that moment Archer imagined
her, almost heard her, stealing up behind him to thro