'
She seemed to indicate that there was no one there. He took the key,
unlocked the door, carried her in, and secured it carefully behind them.
Chapter 17
It was a chilly night, and the fire in the widow's parlour had burnt
low. Her strange companion placed her in a chair, and stooping down
before the half-extinguished ashes, raked them together and fanned them
with his hat. From time to time he glanced at her over his shoulder, as
though to assure himself of her remaining quiet and making no effort to
depart; and that done, busied himself about the fire again.
It was not without reason that he took these pains, for his dress was
dank and drenched with wet, his jaws rattled with cold, and he shivered
from head to foot. It had rained hard during the previous night and for
some hours in the morning, but since noon it had been fine. Wheresoever
he had passed the hours of darkness, his condition sufficiently
betokened that many of them had been spent beneath the open sky.
Besmeared with mire; his saturated clothes clinging with a damp embrace
about his limbs; his beard unshaven, his face unwashed, his meagre
cheeks worn into deep hollows,--a more miserable wretch could hardly be,
than this man who now cowered down upon the widow's hearth, and watched
the struggling flame with bloodshot eyes.
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