He passed crowds of thin-clad women looking in through open doors, with red cheeks and hungry eyes, at red-hot stoves within, and a placard, "Christmas dinners for the poor, gratis"; out of every window on the streets came a ruddy light, and a spicy smell; the very sunset sky had caught the reflection of the countless Christmas fires, and flamed up to the zenith, blood-red as cinnabar. Holmes turned down one of the back streets: he was going to see Lois, first of all. I hardly know why: the child's angel may have touched him, too; or his heart, full of a yearning pity for the poor cripple, who, he believed now, had given her own life for his, may have plead for indulgence, as men remember their childish prayers, before going into battle. He came at last, in the quiet lane where she lived, to her little brown frame-shanty, to which you mounted by a flight of wooden steps: there were two narrow windows at the top, hung with red curtains; he could hear her feeble voice singing within. As he turned to go up the steps, he caught sight of something crouched underneath them in the dark, hiding from him: whether a man--or a dog he could not see. He touched it. "What d' ye want, Mas'r?" said a stifled voice. He touched it again with his stick. The man stood upright, back in the shadow: it was old Yare. "Had ye any word wi' me, Mas'r?" He saw the negro's face grow gray with fear. "Come out, Yare," he said, quietly. "Any word? What word is arson, eh?" The man did not move. Holmes touched him with the stick. "Come out," he said. He came out, looking gaunt, as with famine. "I'll not flurr myself," he said, crunching his ragged hat in his hands,--"I'll not." He drove the hat down upon his head, and looked up with a sullen fierceness. "Yoh've got me, an' I'm glad of 't. I'm tired, fearin'. I was born for hangin', they say," with a laugh. "But I'll see my girl. I've waited hyur, runnin' the resk,--not darin' to see her, on 'count o' yoh. I thort I was safe on Christmas-day,--but what's Christmas to yoh or me?" Holmes's quiet motion drove him up the steps before him. He stopped at the top, his cowardly nature getting the better of him, and sat down whining on the upper step. "Be marciful, Mas'r! I wanted to see my girl,--that's all. She's all I hev." Holmes passed him and went in. Was Christmas nothing to him? How did this foul wretch know that they stood alone, apart from the world? It was a low, cheerful little room that he came into, stooping his tall head: a tea-kettle humming and singing on the wood-fire, that lighted up the coarse carpet and the gray walls, but spent its warmest heat on the low settee where Lois lay sewing, and singing to herself. She was wrapped up in a shawl, but the hands, he saw, were worn to skin and bone; the gray shadow was heavier on her face, and the brooding brown eyes were like a tired child's. She tried to jump up when she saw him, and not being able, leaned on one elbow, half-crying as she laughed.