His eyes again turned apprehensively toward the house. The window was dark; he could see nothing except the dense outlines of the square little building against the black sky. There was a dead chill in the air. The silence weighed upon him. He made a stealthy way to the weather boards of the house. The touch of his numb fingers against the frosty wood was uncanny, and he drew his hand sharply away. For a moment he paused, and his crouching form straightened with a sudden consciousness of its position. The deepest revulsion swept over him, the most inordinate shame and horror. Why was he coming to her in the dead of night, like an assassin, sneaking, cringing, shivering? With a groan he recklessly strode forward to the dark window frame. His fingers touched the glass of two or three panes, then the rags that kept the wind out of others. In there she was lying asleep, alone, breathing softly, dreaming of him perhaps. He was within ten feet of that dear, unconscious body and she was sweetly alive--a tender breathing thing that loved him better than life. Alive, and he had come to take life away from her! He had come to steal the only thing that was left to her--her life. With wild eyes he sought to penetrate the darkness beyond the glass. As plainly as if it were broad daylight his imagination revealed to him the interior of the bare room. There were his drawings on the walls; the worn ingrain carpet of green and red; the old rocking-chair and the two cane-bottom chairs; the walnut stand with its simple cover of white muslin, the prayer-book and the kerosene lamp; Justine's little work-basket with its yarn, its knitting, its thread, thimble, patch-pieces and the scissors. Across the back of a chair hung her pitifully unfashionable dress of calico, her white underskirt, her thick petticoat; beside the bed stood the heavy, well-worn shoes with her black stockings lying limp and lifeless across them. The white coverlet, rumpled and ridged by the lithe figure that snuggled underneath; the brown hair, the sweet, tired face with its closed eyes, sunk in the broad pillow; the gentle breathing, the regular movement of the covers that stretched across the warm, slumbering body; the brown, strong hand that wore his ring resting beside the cheek of the sleeper. A sudden eagerness to clasp the hand, to hold it firm, to protect it from something, came to him. He wondered for a moment why she should need protection--before he remembered.