d the letter where there was more of it to
his lips--held it out toward the fire as if the red jewels were to set
themselves around it, thought differently, and putting it back in its
envelope, thrust it in the pocket of his waistcoat.

"Ruggles," he asked the servant who had come in, "you sent the despatch
to Tuxedo?"

"Yes, sir."

"There'll be later a note to send. I'll ring. Well, what is it?"

"There's a person at the door, sir, who insists on seeing you."

The servant's tone--one particularly jarring to the ears of a man who
had fellowship with more than one class of his kind--made the master
look sharply up. Ruggles was a new addition to the household, and
Bulstrode did not like him.

"A person," Bulstrode repeated, quietly; "what sort of a person?"

"A man, sir."

"Not a gentleman? No," he nodded gently; "I see you do not think him
one. Yet that he is a man is in his favor. There are some gentlemen
who aren't men, you know. Let him in."

In doing so Ruggles seemed to let in the night. Bulstrode had, in the
warmth of his fragrant room, forgotten that outside was the wintry
dark. Ruggles, in letting the man in, had the air of thrusting him in,
and shut the door behind the visitor with a click.

The creature himself let in the cold; he seemed made of it. The snow
clung to his shoulders; his shoes, tied up with strings, were encrusted
with it. His coat, buttoned to his chin, frayed at the cuffs and
edges, was thin and weather-stained. He had a pale face, a royal
growth of beard--this was all Bulstrode had time to remark. He rose.

"My servant says you want to see me. Come near the fire, won't you?"

The visitor did not stir. Bewildered in the warmth of the room, he
stood far back on the edge of the thick rug. To all appearances he was
a bit of driftwood from the streets, one of the usual vagrant class who
haunt the saloons and park and steer from lockup to night-lodging,
until they finally steer themselves entirely off the face of history,
and the potter's field gathers them in. Nothing but his entrance into
this conventional room before this well-balanced member of decent
society was peculiar.

As he still neither moved nor spoke, Bulstrode, approaching him, again
invited: "Come near the fire, won't you? and when you are warm tell me
what I can do for you."

"It's the storm," murmured the man, and a half-human look came across
his face with his words. "I mean to say, it's this hell