HE fourth night he was there again. By this time everything in the house, from the kettle in the kitchen to the carpet on the topmost landing, was aware that a one-armed man was hidden beneath the trees across the road, watching. The whole house was on the alert, listening and waiting—everybody, that is to say, except the people most concerned, who inhabited us. It seemed strange that they alone should be in ignorance. The grandfather clock did his best to tell them. “Beware; take care. Beware; take care,” he ticked as his pendulum swung to and fro. They stared him in the face and read the time by his hands, but they had no idea what he was saying.

What could it be that the watching man wanted? Whatever it was, he wanted it badly, for it was by no means pleasant to stand motionless for several hours when the November chill was in the air. Nor did he seem to find it pleasant, for every now and then he coughed and shook himself like a dog inside his coat, and sunk his chin deeper into his collar.

He had been there since six o'clock. He had seen the cook and the housemaid come up the area-steps and meet their respective sweethearts under the arc-light at the end of the square. There was only one other grown person in the house beside the little lady—Nurse; and Nurse had been in bed since the afternoon with a sick headache. He could not have known that. It was at precisely eight that he consulted his luminous wrist-watch, crossed the road, hesitated and raised the knocker very determinedly, as if he had only just arrived and had not much time to spare. Rat-tat-tat! The sound echoed alarmingly through the silence. The little lady dropped her sewing in her lap and listened. The sound was repeated. Rat-tat-tat! It seemed to say, “Come along. Don't keep me waiting. You've got to let me in sooner or later. You know that.”

“It can't be the postman at this hour,” she murmured, “and yet it sounds like his knock.”

Laying her work on the table beneath the lamp, she rose from her chair and descended. She opened the door only a little way at first, just wide enough for her to peer out, so that she could close it again if she saw anything disturbing.

“So you do live here!” The man outside spoke gladly. “I guessed it could be no one else the moment I saw that the house was no longer empty.”

She opened the door a few more inches. His tone puzzled her by its familiarity. His face had not yet come into the ray of light which slanted from the hall across the steps.

“You don't recognise me?” he questioned. “I called to let you know that I did fetch that taxi. It's been on my mind that you thought I deserted you. Taxi-cabs were hard to find in an air-raid.”

She flung the door wide. “Why it's——”

She didn't know how to call him—how to put what he was into words. He had been simply “the American officer”—that was how she had named him in talking with the children. He had been often remembered, especially during the fireside hour when in imaginary adventures he had been the hero of many stories. How brave she had made him and how often she had feared that he was dead! There were other stories which she had told only to herself, when the children were asleep and the house was silent. And there he stood on the threshold, with the same gallant bearing and the same eager smile playing about his mouth. “I've always been loved and trusted; you love and trust me, too”—that was what his smile was saying to her.

Her heart was beating wildly; but nothing of what she felt expressed itself in what she said. “I'm by myself. I've let the maids go out. I'm terribly apologetic for having treated you so suspiciously.”

He laughed and stepped into the hall. “I seem fated to find you by yourself; you were alone last time. I'm in hospital and have to be back by ten. Won't you let me sit with you for half an hour?”

He had begun to remove his top-coat awkwardly. His awkwardness attracted her attention.

“Please let me do that for you.”

“Oh, I'm learning to manage. It's all right.... Well, if you must. Thanks.” She didn't dare trust herself. There was a pricking sensation behind her eyes. She motioned to him to go first. As she followed him up the stairs, she gazed fixedly at his flattened left side, where the sleeve was tucked limply into the tunic-pocket. She knew that when she was again face to face with him she must pretend not to have noticed.

He entered the room and stood staring round. “The same old room! But it didn't belong to you then. How did you manage it?”

“Easily, but not on purpose.”

“Truly, not on purpose?” His tone was disappointed.

“No, not on purpose. I didn't know the name of the square or the number of the house that night. I stumbled on it months later by accident. It was still to let.”

“So you took it? Why did you take it?”

“Because I'd liked it from the first and it suited me,” she smiled. “Why else?”

“I thought perhaps...”

“Well, say it. You're just like Robbie. When Robbie wants to tell me something that's difficult, he has a special place against which he hides his face; it's easier to tell me there. You men are all such little boys. If it's difficult to tell, you do the same and say it without looking at me.”

She reseated herself beneath the lamp and took up her sewing. “Now tell me, why did you want me to say that I took it on purpose?”

“I don't quite know. Perhaps it was because, had I been you, I should have taken it on purpose. One likes to live in places where he has been happy, even though the happiness lasted only for an hour.”

He wandered over to the couch before the fire and sat down where he could watch her profile and the slope of her throat beneath the lamp. The only sound was the prick of the needle and the quiet pulling through of the thread. It had all happened just as he would have planned it. He was glad that she was alone. He was glad that it was in this same room that they had met. He was glad in a curious unreasoning way for the faint fragrance of Jacqueminot that surrounded her. It had been just like this at the Front that he had thought of her—thought of her so intensely that he had almost caught the scent and the rustle of her dress, moving towards him through the squalor of the trench. Through all the horror the brief memory of her gentleness had remained with him. And what hopes he had built on that memory! He had told himself that, if he survived, by hook or by crook he would search her out. In hospital, when he had returned to England, all his impatience to get well had been to get to her. In his heart he had never expected success. The task had seemed too stupendous. And now here he was, sitting with her alone, the house all quiet, the fire shining, the lamp making a pool of gold among the shadows, and she, most quiet of all, taking him comfortably for granted and carrying on with her woman's work. At last he was at rest; not in love with her, he told himself, but at rest.

It was she who broke the silence. “How did you know? What made you come so directly to this house?”

He met her eyes and smiled. “Where else was there to come? It was the one place we both knew. I took a chance at it.” And then, after a pause, “No, that's not quite true. I was sent up to London for special treatment. The first evening I was allowed out of hospital, I hurried here and, finding that our empty house was occupied, stayed outside to watch it.”

“But why to watch it?”

“Because it was a million to one that you weren't the tenant. Before I rang the bell I wanted to make certain. You see I don't know your name; I couldn't ask to see the lady of the house. If she hadn't been you, how could I have explained my intrusion?”

“And then you made certain?”

He nodded. “You came to the window on Armistice night and stood for a few minutes looking out.”

“I remember.” She shivered as if a cold breath had struck her. “I was feeling stupid and lonely; all the world out there in the darkness seemed so glad. I wish you had rung my bell. That was three nights ago.”

“You mean why did I let three nights go by. I guess because I was a coward. I got what we call in America 'cold feet.' I thought...”

He waited for her to prompt him. She sat leaning forward, her hands lying idle in her lap. He noticed, as he had noticed nearly a year ago, the half-moon that her shoulders made in the dimness. She was extraordinarily motionless; her motionlessness gave her an atmosphere of strength. When she moved her gestures said as much as words. Nothing that she did was hurried.

“Tell me what you thought.” she said quietly. She spoke to him as she would have spoken to Robbie, making him feel very young and little. When she spoke like that there was not much that he would not have told her.

“I thought that you might not remember me or want to see me. We met so oddly; after the lapse of a year you might easily have regarded my call as an impertinence.”

“An impertinence!” There were tears in her eyes when she raised her head. “You lost your arm that I and my children might be safe, and you talk about impertinence.”

“Oh, that!” He glanced down at his empty sleeve. “That's nothing. It's the luck of the game and might have happened to anybody.”

“But you lost it for me,” she re-asserted, “that I might be safe. You must have suffered terribly.”

Seeing her distress, he laughed gaily. “Losing an arm wasn't the worst that might have happened. I'm one of the fortunate ones; I'm still above ground. The thing wasn't very painful—nothing is when you've simply got to face it. It's the thinking about pain that hurts.... Hulloa, look at the time; I can just get back to the hospital by ten. If we're late, they punish us by keeping us in next night.”

At the top of the stairs as she was seeing him out, he halted and looked back into the room. “It's quiet and cosy in there. I don't want to leave; I feel like a boy being packed off to school. You can't understand how wonderful it is after all the marching and rough times and being cut about to be allowed to sit by a fire with a woman. I loved to watch you at your sewing.”

“It's because you're tired,” she said, “more tired than you know. You must come very often and rest.”