Galusha made no further protest. She held the door open and he preceded
her into a room, then into another, this last evidently a sitting room.
He was to know it well later; just now he was conscious of little except
that it was a room--and light--and warm--and dry.

"Sit down!" ordered his hostess.

Galusha found himself standing beside a couch, an old-fashioned sofa. It
tempted him--oh, how it tempted him!--but he remembered the condition of
his garments.

"I am very wet indeed," he faltered. "I'm afraid I may spoil your--your
couch."

"Sit DOWN!"

Galusha sat. The room was doing a whirling dervish dance about him, but
he still felt it his duty to explain.

"I fear you must think this--ah--very queer," he stammered. "I realize
that I must seem--ah--perhaps insane, to you. But I have, as I say, been
ill and I have walked several miles, owing to--ah--mistakes in locality,
and not having eaten for some time, since breakfast, in fact, I--"

"Not since BREAKFAST? Didn't you have any dinner, for mercy sakes?"

"No, madam. Nor luncheon. Oh, it is quite all right, no one's fault but
my own. Then, when I found the--the hotel closed, I--I sat down to rest
and--and when I heard you call my name--"