So cursing, and alternating his curses with raging silence, he trudged on his way until four o'clock, when he was in sight of the cottage upon the Knoll Road—the cottage where Joan and Liz lay asleep upon their poor bed, with the child between them.
Joan had not been asleep long. The child had been unusually fretful, and had kept her awake. So she was the more easily awakened from her first light and uneasy slumber by a knock on the door. Hearing it, she started up and listened.
"Who is it?" she asked in a voice too low to disturb the sleepers, but distinct enough to reach Lowrie's hearing.
"Get thee up an' oppen th door," was the answer. "I want thee."
She knew there was something wrong. She had not responded to his summons for so many years without learning what each tone meant. But she did not hesitate.
When she had hastily thrown on some clothing, she opened the door and stood before him.
"I did not expect to see yo' to-neet," she said, quietly.
"Happen not," he replied. "Coom out here. I ha' summat to say to yo'."
"Yo' wunnot come in?" she asked.
"Nay. What I ha' to say mowt waken th' young un."
She stepped out without another word, and closed the door quietly behind her.
There was the faintest possible light in the sky, the first tint of dawn, and it showed even to his brutal eyes all the beauty of her face and figure as she stood motionless, the dripping rain falling upon her; there was so little suggestion of fear about her that he was roused to fresh anger.
