The girl's fingers moved about the buckles, and in a little while they were on the move, Herman giving the worn-out man the help of his strong arm. He stopped before they had gone far. "We can't go on like this," he said decisively; and, taking the stranger in his arms bodily, he went forward with strong, swift strides, but as gently as he knew how, towards the river. The boat was there, and laying his burden in the stern, and bidding Margaret sit beside him, Herman pulled the little craft down the darkening stream, not pausing till he reached the water-gate. He answered the challenge. What he said satisfied the sergeant of the gate, and, mounting the green-stained steps, now once more with the stranger in his arms, and Margaret following anxiously, lest her lover's feet should slip, he stood on the topmost step of all, and waited for her. Passing along the dark and narrow streets, they paused at last at the door of Herman's home. Margaret threw the door open and waited for him to pass in. "Mother," he cried, when, at the end of the passage, he stood in an open doorway, "I have brought you a lodger!" The woman who sat at the table looked up, her needle half-drawn through the cloth, and her blue eyes opened so wide that Herman laughed at his mother's surprise. Mistress Bengel started to her feet in wonder at seeing her son so burdened. "Who is it?" she exclaimed. "Is he ill?" she asked, before there was time to answer her first question. "Nay, not ill, but worn out. I will take him upstairs to the empty chamber." He turned as he spoke, and mounted the stairs. At the top, before he thrust the door open with his foot, he called down to the others: "Mother, you will find that I have brought home an angel unawares." He laughed again. Yet he felt that it was no jest. He had watched the stranger, and something told him he was above the common run of men. When the stranger lay quiet on the bed, sighing contentedly to find himself at rest, and clasping his hands for silent prayer before he slept, Herman turned away and crept down the stairs softly. "Mother," he said, in little more than a whisper, when he entered the living-room and closed the door behind him noiselessly, "do you guess who that man is?" The woman watched her son's face, and marvelled at the kindling of his eyes. "No, my boy, I cannot. I did not so much as see his face." Herman gazed around the room before he spoke again. His eyes turned to the window, as if he thought someone might be peering in. He went to the passage and looked along it. He did more than that, for he went to the street door and, opening it, looked into the dark street, but it was silent, and he saw no one. There was not so much as a footstep to be heard anywhere. "Margaret," he asked, when he came back to the two wondering women, "did anyone, think you, see us enter the house?"