ohn, I will keep it. But you must come again and see
me--" here Mrs. Tretherick hesitated with a new and sudden revelation
of the fact that any man could wish to see any other than herself--"and,
and--Carry."

Ah Fe's face lightened. He even uttered a short ventriloquistic laugh
without moving his mouth. Then, shouldering his basket, he shut the door
carefully and slid quietly down stairs. In the lower hall he, however,
found an unexpected difficulty in opening the front door, and, after
fumbling vainly at the lock for a moment, looked around for some help
or instruction. But the Irish handmaid who had let him in was
contemptuously oblivious of his needs, and did not appear.

There occurred a mysterious and painful incident, which I shall simply
record without attempting to explain. On the hall table a scarf,
evidently the property of the servant before alluded to, was lying.
As Ah Fe tried the lock with one hand, the other rested lightly on the
table. Suddenly, and apparently of its own volition, the scarf began to
creep slowly toward Ah Fe's hand; from Ah Fe's hand it began to creep up
his sleeve slowly, and with an insinuating, snakelike motion; and then
disappeared somewhere in the recesses of his blouse. Without betraying
the least interest or concern in this phenomenon, Ah Fe still repeated
his experiments upon the lock. A moment later the tablecloth of red
damask, moved by apparently the same mysterious impulse, slowly gathered
itself under Ah Fe's fingers, and sinuously disappeared by the same
hidden channel. What further mystery might have followed, I cannot say;
for at this moment Ah Fe discovered the secret of the lock, and was
enabled to open the door coincident with the sound of footsteps upon
the kitchen stairs. Ah Fe did not hasten his movements, but patiently
shouldering his basket, closed the door carefully behind him again, and
stepped forth into the thick encompassing fog that now shrouded earth
and sky.

From her high casement window, Mrs. Tretherick watched Ah Fe's figure
until it disappeared in the gray cloud. In her present loneliness, she
felt a keen sense of gratitude toward him, and may have ascribed to
the higher emotions and the consciousness of a good deed that certain
expansiveness of the chest, and swelling of the bosom, that was really
due to the hidden presence of the scarf and tablecloth under his blouse.
For Mrs. Tretherick was still poetically sensitive. As the gray fog
deepened in