At the beginning of her venture Jeckie had spent all her energies on the business part of her establishment, and had laid out very little money on the furnishing of the private rooms. A living room for meals, bedrooms for herself and Rushie and their father, had seemed to her sufficient for first needs; additions could come later, if the business prospered. The business had prospered, and there came a time when she determined to have at least a parlour into which the better class of customers could be shown if they wanted to see her, as they sometimes did, in private. Accordingly, she gave orders to the best firm of furniture dealers in Sicaster to fit up a room at the side of the house in handsome, if solid, style, having previously had it, and a lobby adjoining it, painted and decorated in corresponding manner. The door of the lobby opened on a little side garden; she ordered it to be painted a rich dark green, and had it fitted with a fine brass knocker which one of the shop-boys kept so constantly polished that its refulgence exceeded that of the golden teapot at the front of the house. It was to this door that George Grice stole, and at this knocker that he sounded his summons, and the time was half-past nine at night. Jeckie--alone, for Farnish had already retired--wondered who it could be that came knocking there at that late hour. She picked up a hand-lamp and went round to the lobby and opened the door; the light of the lamp fell full on George Grice's round face, and on a certain sheepish and furtive look in his eyes. He lifted his slouched straw hat, and even smiled faintly, but Jeckie frowned in ominous fashion. "What do you want?" she demanded in her least gracious manner. She had never heard Grice's voice since the afternoon, now long since, on which he had ridden away from Applecroft, turning a deaf ear to her prayers, but she remembered it well enough, and she knew that there was a new note in it when he spoke, a note of something very like meekness, if not of positive humility. "I could like a word or two wi' you, if you please," said Grice. "A word i' private." Jeckie knew from the very tone that this man who had once thrown her aside like an old glove, and whom she had fought with the fierceness and tenacity of a tiger, had come to acknowledge himself defeated. Without a word she motioned him to enter, closed the door, led him into the new parlour, lighted a handsome standard lamp that stood on the table, and pointing him to a chair, took one herself and stared at him. "Well?" she said. Grice drew out a big handkerchief and mopped his bald head; it was an old trick of his, well remembered by Jeckie, whenever he was moved or excited. "I made a mistake i' your case," he answered, almost dully. "I--I didn't know it at the time, but I know it now--to my cost."