She had let out a screech at first sight of the dripping figure with haggard cheeks and staring eyes, and even after he had thrown off his coat and emerged as the elegant, somewhat ineffectual master she knew, her fear of him scarcely lessened. He told her to make him some tea, shooting out sharp questions as she dragged to and fro, and swearing helplessly at the maddening vagueness of her replies. When the tea came, he drank it black and strong, and ate nothing, sitting at the table with his wet hands locked, the flying firelight on his white, strained face and drooped shoulders. At every fresh blow of the gale he started, and more than once he went to the door to peer into the dark, looking for Lup’s form on the step, and returning breathless from the fight with the entering storm. As the hours wore on, he could not sit still even for a few minutes together, but was forced to pace the flags, straining and listening, his restless eyes on the banging windows and the shaking rugs, coughing as the wind in the chimney drove great clouds of smoke into the room. The housekeeper had fallen asleep again, taking no heed of his mutterings as he passed continually behind her. The stock was safe, anyhow, up in those far pens. Were they doing anything at Pippin?--Pippin, on the very edge of the sand, hobnobbing with every tide that ran in? Probably they were all gallivanting off to the “Duke,” eating and drinking with that Lancaster-worshipping fool from Watters. Was Lup there, too, blind and deaf to the call of the storm? and, if not, where was he? That was the torturing, unanswerable problem. He’d never have come to Thweng, though, if he hadn’t thought something was up--why, he would never have left Liverpool at all! What had that old hag _really_ told him? She might easily have given him the message, after all, and forgotten all about it. If he had gone straight to the Pride, Brack would certainly never set eyes on him to-night. If, on the other hand, it was true that he meant to call again, he might be here, any minute. Should he wait, or should he go himself? God! What was that? A fresh, tearing roar from the gale drove him to a scream that brought the old woman leaping out of her happy, drunken sleep. He was struggling back into his coat, trying to control himself. It had only been the wind, after all. “I’m off out again!” he threw at her, tying a scarf over his mouth to keep the force of the air from choking him. “Come and bar the door after me, and if you don’t stop awake with your eye on that fire, you’ll sure be cinders in hell by to-morrow morning! Do you take me? And if Lup’s round again, tell him I’ve gone to the Pride!”