She went out of the room before her maid. She would not seem jealous, or to grudge Janet’s ready and joyful greeting. She went into the little dining-room, and began to arrange the table with her own hands. “Go you quick and put the chicken to the fire,” she said. Was she glad to escape from his presence, from Robbie, her long absent son, her only child? All the time she went quickly about, putting out the shining silver, freshly burnished, as it was Saturday; the fresh linen, put ready for Sunday; the best plates, part of the dinner-service that was kept in the dining-room. “This will do for the cold things,” she said; “and oh, make haste, make haste with the rest!” Then she took out the two decanters of wine, the port and the sherry, which nobody drank, but which she had always been accustomed to keep ready. The bread was new, just come in from the baker’s, everything fresh, the provisions of the Saturday market, and of that instinct which prepares the best of everything for Sunday--the Sabbath--the Lord’s day. It was not the fatted calf, but at least it was the best fare that ever came into the house, the Sunday fare. Then she went back to him in the other room: he had not followed her, but sat just as she had left him, his head on his breast. He roused up and gave a startled look round as she came in, as if there might be some horrible danger in that peaceful place. “Your supper is ready,” she said, her voice still tremulous. “Come to your supper. It is nothing but cold meat to begin with, but the chicken will soon be ready, Robbie: there’s nothing here to fear----” “I know,” he said, rising slowly: “but if you had been like me, in places where there was everything to fear, it would be long before you got out of the way of it. How can I tell that there might not be somebody watching outside that window, which you keep without shutter or curtain, in this lonely little house, where any man might break in?” He gave another suspicious glance at the window as he followed her out of the room. “Tell Janet to put up the shutters,” he said.