So he walked up and down, up and down, over the rough, frozen patch of ground behind the fir trees; his coat collar turned up, his soft hat pulled low over his eyes, his face grim and dour; a sinister figure he would have been to meet on a lonely road. Up and down—and then something happened. At first he could not grasp what it was, only that in some way his world had changed. He stopped short, every nerve alert. Then he realized that it was a sudden increase in the darkness, and, turning toward the house, he saw the lights there going out, one by one. “By George!” he thought. “They’re all going to bed! And I suppose I can stay here all night, eh? While they’re warm and snug, the faithful Cousin James will be on guard. All right! I said I’d do it. But I’m going to get a glass of milk for that baby.” He set off as fast as his numb feet and stiff legs would carry him, toward the back door. He would tell the cook that he was hungry, and she would give him what he wanted. A kind, sensible woman, that cook. He pushed open the back door and went in; it was dark in the passage, but warm, and the entrancing perfumes of the great dinner still lingered there. He went on, toward the kitchen, but before he got there, the swing door opened, and Mrs. Jones appeared. She stopped, and he thought that she whispered: “It’s I!” He was a little disconcerted, because he knew that Mrs. Jones was not fond of him, and he was extremely suspicious of her. But she looked so sedate, almost venerable, standing there in the lighted doorway, in her best black dress, with her gray hair, her spectacles. He took off his hat, and spoke to her civilly. “I came to ask for a glass of milk,” he said. Then she repeated what she had said before, and it was not “It’s I,” but the word “Spy!” uttered with a suppressed scorn that startled him. “Spy!” she said. “I know you!” He looked at her in stern amazement. “Leave this house!” she said. “You can deceive a poor innocent young girl, but you can’t deceive me. You and your glass of milk! I know you! And I tell you straight to your face that you’re not coming one step farther. I’m going to stay here all night, and I’m going to see to it that neither you nor anybody else comes to worry and torment that poor girl. Go!” “All right!” said Ross, briefly, and, turning on his heel, went out of the house. “If she’s going to take over the job of watchdog, she’s welcome to it,” he thought. “I guess she’d be pretty good at that sort of thing. But—spy!” His face grew hot. “I don’t feel inclined to swallow that,” he said to himself, deliberately. “Some day we’ll have a reckoning, Mrs. Jones!” XII