''Just in time!'' said Gentleman softly, gazing at Maud and letting her draw her hand from him.
It was the hand he had kissed. She must have felt his lips there still, for I saw her turn from him and hold it to her bosom, and stroke her fingers over her palm.
Chapter Five
The rain fell all that night. It made rivers of water that ran ^y beneath the basement doors, into the kitchen, the still-room and the pantries. We had to cut short our supper so that Mr Way and Charles might lay down sacks. I stood with Mrs Stiles at a backstairs window, watching the bouncing raindrops and the flashes of lightning. She rubbed her arms and gazed at the sky.
''Pity the sailors at sea,'' she said.
I went up early to Maud''s rooms, and sat in the darkness, and when she came she did not know, for a minute, that I was there: she stood and put her hands to her face. Then the lightning flashed again, and she saw me, and jumped.
''Are you here?'' she said.
Her eyes seemed large. She had been with her uncle, and with Gentleman. I thought, ''She''ll tell me now.'' But she only stood gazing at me, and when the thunder sounded she turned and moved away. I went with her to her bedroom. She stood as weakly for me to
undress her as she had stood in Gentleman''s arms, and the hand he had kissed she held off a little from her side, as if to guard it. In her bed she lay very still, but lifted her head, now and then, from her pillow. There was a steady drip, drip in one of the attics. ''Do you hear the rain?'' she said; and then, in a softer voice: ''The thunder is moving away－思－兔－網－