Some strange doubts had been in Andy's brain for the last hour, but he never told a secret. "It was in the market I come, to know Mr. Starke," he said, confusedly. "At the eatin'-stalls. He never said to me as he hed a wife." The rain was heavy and constant when it came, a muddy murkiness in the air that bade fair to last for a day or more. Evening closed in rapidly. Andy sat still on the porch; he could shuffle his heels as he pleased there, and take a sly bit of tobacco, watching, through a crack between the houses, the drip, drip, of rain on the umbrellas going by, the lamps beginning to glow here and there in the darkness, listening to the soggy footfalls and the rumble of the streetcars. "This is tiresome,"--putting one finger carefully under the rungs of his chair, where he had the lantern. "I wonder ef Jane is waiting for me,--an' for any one else." He trotted one foot, and chewed more vehemently. On the verge of some mystery, it seemed to him. "Ef it is--What ef he misses, an' won't go back with me? God help the woman! What kin _I_ do?" After a while, taking out the lantern, and rubbing it where the damp had dimmed it,-- "I'll need it to-night, that's sure!" Now and then he bent his head, trying to catch a sound from the lobby, but to no purpose. About five o'clock, however, there was a sudden sound, shoving of chairs, treading, half-laughs, as of people departing. The door opened, and the gentlemen came out into the lighted hall, in groups of two or three,--some who were to dine with the Doctor passing up the staircase, the others chatting by the door. The Doctor was not with them, nor Starke. Andy stood up, trying to hear, holding his felt hat over his mouth. "If he's hed a chance!" But he could catch only broken sentences. "A long session." "I knew it from the first." "I asked Starke to call on me to-morrow," etc. And so they put on their hats, and went out, leaving the hall vacant. "I can't stand this," said Andy, after a pause. He wiped his wet feet, and went into the hall. The door out of which the men came opened into a reception-room; beyond that was the lobby. It was dimly lighted as yet, when he entered it; the engine-model, a mass of miniature wheels and cylinders, was in the middle of the bare floor; the Doctor and Starke at the other end of the apartment. The Doctor was talking,--a few words now and then, earnestly spoken. Andy could not hear them; but Starke sat, saying nothing. Miss Defourchet took a pair of India-rubber boots from the servant in the hall, and went to him. "You must wear them, and take an umbrella, if you will not stay," she said, stooping down, as if she would like to have put them on his feet, her voice a little unsteady. "It rains very heavily, and your shoes are not strong. Indeed, you must."