Not a sign of Bob Weevil. But oh, what a relief it was, a relief beyond anything he had expected, when he entered his own kitchen and found Gerda, arrayed in a spotless print apron, laying the supper.

He could see how pleased the girl was at the obvious genuineness of the emotion with which he greeted her. And genuine indeed his feelings were; though not all of them would have caused her equal satisfaction had they been exposed.

He ran upstairs to change his clothes, bringing the drenched ones down with him a minute or two later to dry them by the stove. The warmth of the kitchen, the steam that came from his wet things, the rank earthy smell of boiling turnips, the affectionate scolding of this beautiful young being, betrayed him quickly enough into that peculiar intimacy where the safety of virtue becomes the voluptuousness of content. The beat of the rain on the roof enhanced this security; while everything outside his four walls seemed a sweet shiver of excluded danger.