He had lost all control of himself. The passion which had been his sole inheritance from his drink-sodden parents mastered him easily. At that moment he was almost a savage. He cursed John Martinghoe and the moment when he had been lured into the belief that his self-education and mastery of self had made him the equal of those who were divided from him only by the accident of birth. He cursed the woman whose kindness had led him into a fool's paradise, the sudden change in his position which seemed now only a mockery to him. The fit passed with a little outburst of shame. Nevertheless, it was with bent head and gray-lined face that he crept downward to his cottage, drenched to the skin. He heaped wood upon the embers of a fire and sat over it, shivering. Almost a stupor came over him as he sat there, weak, numbed to the bone with the clinging dampness of his clothes. If this thing had happened to him in full health, he would have met it more bravely. After all, it was the end which he had always told himself was inevitable. A sense of bitter shame was mingled with his dejection. He had built up his life so carefully, only to see it sent crashing about his ears at a woman's light touch. So he sat brooding among the fragments, while the rain beat fiercely against his window pane and the wind howled in the wood. He came to himself suddenly, awakened by the opening of the door. He looked around. Milly stood there, her pale cheeks glowing with the sting of the rain and the wind, her hair in disorder, her eyes alight with the joy of seeing him. She dropped a heap of parcels and fell on her knees by his side. "Oh, thank God!" she sobbed. "Oh, I am so glad to see you, so glad!" Her streaming eyes, the warm touch of her hands, pierced his insensibility. He even smiled faintly. "What are you doing here, child?" he asked, "on such a night, too. Why, you are wet through." She evaded his question, horror-stricken at his own state. "You're fair soaked," she cried. "Mercy me!" She brought out his gray homespun clothes from the chest, and with deft fingers removed his coat and waistcoat, talking all the while. "Well, I never," she exclaimed. "The rain's gone through the lining. It's a mercy you've had sense to keep the fire in. I'll make you a hot drink directly." He submitted himself to her care. After the agony of the last few hours the sound of her shrill, but not unpleasant, voice and her breathless anxiety on his behalf seemed almost grateful. He was hustled into dry clothes, and his feet and hands were rubbed into a state of glowing warmth. Fresh logs were thrown upon the fire, a kettle boiled, and some tea deftly prepared. From one of her parcels came bread and meat. He ate at her bidding. Outside the storm grew in violence. She sat crouched almost at his feet, the firelight playing on her brown hair, her eyes wet with tears. A clearer sense of what was happening came to him. He sat up suddenly. "How did you come here?" he asked.