he hesitated, he remembered suddenly that he had not passed a house in
five minutes. In the same moment his eye fell upon a little cottage just
ahead of him, unlighted and barely perceptible in the thick darkness,
standing off the road not a hundred feet away. He made for it through
the driving rain and wind, stepped upon the narrow porch, discovered
immediately that it gave him no protection at all, and knocked loudly
upon the shut door. He got no answer. Trying it with a wet hand he
perceived that it was unlocked; and without more ado, he opened it and
stepped inside.

It was evidently, as he had surmised, an empty house. The hall was dark
and very quiet. He leaned against the closed front door and dipped into
his pockets for a match. Behind him the rain fell in torrents, and the
turbulent wind dashed after it and hurled it against the streaming
windows. It had turned in half an hour from a peaceful evening to a wild
night, a night when all men of good sense and good fortune should be
sitting secure and snug by their own firesides. And where, oh where, was
Peter?

Speculating gloomily on this and still exploring his pockets for a
match, he heard a noise not far away in the dark, and knew suddenly that
he was not alone. The next moment a voice floated to him out of the
blackness near at hand, clear, but a little irresolute, faintly
frightened.

"Didn't some one come in? Who is there?"

It was a woman's voice and a wholly charming one. There could hardly
have been its match in Hunston.