Their consciousness of each other was so strong that she knew at once when he lifted his arm again, just as he knew when she stirred in fear of the fresh attack. The latch gave its loose, metallic clink as she raised it and let it drop, and then the door began to open with the almost human grudging of old doors. The stranger put out a hand to help it on its way, and with a harsh shriek that sounded like protest it dragged across the flags.
At once the bulk of his big form was in the open square, substantial even in the dissolving light. There was a last pause as the shock of the actual meeting smote upon their minds, and then his voice, cheerful and loud as the knocking, flooded the house.
"Everybody dead here?" he demanded gaily, bending forward to peer at the figure set like a statue just inside. The tone of his voice, deep and kindly, had yet a touch of nervousness at its back. The strain of the waiting had told upon him as well as on her. "Say, you _are_ real, ain’t you?" he enquired sharply, and then laughed. "Mercy! I sure thought everybody must be dead!"
Sarah had another shock at the sound of his voice, topped by the accent from over the pond as the deep note of flood is topped by the thinner note of the surf. She had listened instinctively for the Jim-an’-Geordie voice, but this was the voice of neither Geordie nor Jim. It was as strange to her who knew nothing of other peoples’ speech as if it had been a voice from another star. She shrank away from him, saying--"I thought it was Jim." And then, almost violently, "You’re never Jim!"
The man laughed a second time, but more naturally, as if reassured the moment he heard her speak. "I sure am!" he answered her joyfully. "Why shouldn’t I be? Leastways, I’m all of Jim Thornthet that’s managed to swim across!" The smile stayed on his lips as he stared, but died when she did not respond. "May I come in a spell?" he enquired anxiously. "I’ve only struck England to-day, and I’ve a bag of news."
But again she blocked the entrance as she had blocked it for May. It was the way into herself as well as into the house that these people sought, and she yielded to neither of them by an inch. "You can get out, if you’re Jim," she said caustically, "and as smart as you like! Blindbeck’s your spot. We want nowt wi’ you here."