She listened, her head buried in the shawl, close to the wood panelling. There was no answer; she could only hear the drumming of her heart.
She knocked again. From within came the scraping of a chair cautiously shoved back, followed by a deep-mouthed cavernous growl.
Her heart stood still, but she turned the handle and entered, leaving a crack open behind.
On the far side the room a little man was sitting. His head was swathed in dirty bandages, and a bottle was on the table beside him. He was leaning forward; his face was gray, and there was a stare of naked horror in his eyes. One hand grasped the great dog who stood at his side, with yellow teeth glinting, and muzzle hideously wrinkled; with the other he pointed a palsied finger at her.
The girl stood hard against the door, her fingers still on the handle; trembling like an aspen at the sight of that uncannie pair.
That look in the little man's eyes petrified her: the swollen pupils; lashless lids, yawning wide; the broken range of teeth in that gaping mouth, froze her very soul. Rumors of the man's insanity tided back on her memory.
"I'm--I--" the words came in trembling gasps.
At the first utterance, however, the little man's hand dropped; he leant back in his chair and gave a soul-bursting sigh of relief.
No woman had crossed that threshold since his wife died; and, for a moment, when first the girl had entered silent-footed, aroused from dreaming of the long ago, he had thought this shawl-clad figure with the pale face and peeping hair no earthly visitor; the spirit, rather, of one he had loved long since and lost, come to reproach him with a broken troth.
"Speak up, I canna hear," he said, in tones mild compared with those last wild words.
"I--I'm Maggie Moore," the girl quavered.
"Moore! Maggie Moore, d'ye say?" he cried, half rising from his chair, a flush of color sweeping across his face, "the dochter o' James Moore?" He paused for an answer, glowering at her; and she shrank, trembling, against the door.
The little man leant back in his chair. Gradually a grim smile crept across his countenance.
"Weel, Maggie Moore," he said, halfamused, "ony gate ye're a good plucked un." And his wizened countenance looked at her almost kindly from beneath its dirty crown of bandages.