He rose as she came toward him, took the clothes from her and dropped them on the hearth. He seemed decidedly hazy and remote as he brought a steamer rug from somewhere and wrapped it about her; his voice, as he coaxed her over to the couch, apparently came from miles away. As Patsy sank down, too weary to speak, the figure above her took upon itself once more that suggestion of unearthliness that it had worn when she had discovered it at dawn--hanging to the stump fencing. For an instant the glow of the fire threw the profile into the same shadowy outlines that the rising sun had first marked for her; and the image lingered even after her eyes had closed. "Sure, he's fading away like Oisiu, Gearoidh Iarla, and all of them in the old tales," she thought, drowsily. "Like as not, when I open my eyes again he'll be clear gone." This was where the dream ended and complete oblivion began. * * * * * How long it lasted she could not have told; she only knew she was awake at last and acutely conscious of everything about her; and that she was warm--warm--warm! The room was dark except for the firelight; but whether it was evening or night or midnight, she could not have guessed. She found herself speculating in a hazy fashion where she was, whose house they had broken into, and what the tinker had done with himself. She had a vague, far-away feeling that she ought to be disturbed over something--her complete isolation with a strange companion on a night like this; but the physical contentment, the reaction from bodily torture, drugged her sensibilities. She closed her eyes lazily again and listened to the wind howling outside with the never-ceasing accompaniment of beating rain. She was content to revel in that feeling of luxury that only the snugly housed can know. A sound in the room roused her. She opened her eyes as lazily as she had closed them, expecting to find the tinker there replenishing the fire; instead--She sat up with a jerk, speechless, rubbing her eyes with two excited fists, intent on proving the unreality of what she had seen; but when she looked again there it was--the clean-cut figure of a man immaculate in white summer flannels. The blood rushed to Patsy's face; mortification, dread, sank into her very soul; the drug of physical contentment had lost its power. For the first time in her life she was dominated by the dictates of convention. She cursed her irresponsible love of vagabondage along with her freedom of speech and manner and her lack of conservative judgment. These had played her false and shamed her womanhood.