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.
"What a very interesting town!" the young man thought. "People to talk
to every way you turn."
CHAPTER VI
THE HERO TALKS WITH A LADY IN THE DARK
Varney called reassuringly into the gloom: "I sincerely beg your pardon
for bursting in like that. I--had no idea there was any one here."
There was a second's pause.
"N--no," said the pretty voice, hesitatingly. "You--you couldn't--of
course."
"But please tell me at once," he said, puzzled by this--"have I taken
the unforgivable liberty of breaking into your house?"
"My house?" And he caught something like bewildered relief in her voice.
"Why--I--was thinking that I had broken into yours."
Varney laughed, his back against the door.
"If it were, I'm sure I should be able to offer you a light at the
least. If it were yours, now that I stop to think--well, perhaps it
_would_ be a little eccentric for you to be sitting there in your parlor
in the inky dark."
To this there came no reply.
"I suppose you, like me," he continued courteously, "are an unlucky
wayfarer who had to choose hastily between trespassing and being
drowned."
"Yes."
Inevitably he found himself wondering what this lady who shared his
stolen refuge could be like. That she was a lady her voice left no
doubt. His eye strained off into the Ethiopian blackness, but could make
neither heads nor tails of it.
"Voices always go by contraries," he thought. "She's fifty-two and wears
glasses."
Aloud he said: "But please tell me quite frankly--am I intruding?"
"Not at all," said the lady, only that and nothing more.
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