"I feel real nervous myself," said Mrs.Bowse, "it's so queer.But he's not crazy.He's quiet enough."As they neared the bottom of the staircase Little Ann could see over the balustrade into the dining-room.The strange man was sitting by the table, his disordered, black-haired head on his arm.He looked like an exhausted thing.Tembarom was sitting by him, and was talking in an encouraging voice.He had laid a hand on one of the stranger's.
On the table beside them was spread a number of bills which had evidently just been counted.
"Here's the ladies," said Tembarom.
The stranger lifted his head and, having looked, rose and stood upright, waiting.It was the involuntary, mechanical action of a man who had been trained among gentlemen.
"It's Mrs.Bowse again, and she's brought Miss Hutchinson down with her.Miss Hutchinson always knows what to do," explained Tembarom in his friendly voice.
The man bowed, and his bewildered eyes fixed themselves on Little Ann.
"Thank you," he said."It's very kind of you.I--I am-- in great trouble."Little Ann went to him and smiled her motherly smile at him.
"You're very wet," she said."You'll take a bad cold if you're not careful.Mrs.Bowse thinks you ought to go right to bed and have something hot to drink.""It seems a long time since I was in bed," he answered her.
"I'm very tired.Thank you." He drew a weary, sighing breath, but he didn't move his eyes from the girl's face.Perhaps the cessation of action in certain cells of his brain had increased action in others.
He looked as though he were seeing something in Little Ann's face which might not have revealed itself so clearly to the more normal gaze.
He moved slightly nearer to her.He was a tall man, and had to look down at her.
"What is your name?" he asked anxiously."Names trouble me."It was Ann who drew a little nearer to him now.She had to look up, and the soft, absorbed kindness in her eyes might, Tembarom thought, have soothed a raging lion, it was so intent on its purpose.
"My name is Ann Hutchinson; but never you mind about it now," she said."I'll tell it to you again.Let Mr.Tembarom take you up-stairs to bed.You'll be better in the morning." And because his hollow eyes rested on her so fixedly she put her hand on his wet sleeve.
"You're wet through," she said."That won't do."He looked down at her hand and then at her face again.
"Help me," he pleaded, "just help me.I don't know what's happened.
Have I gone mad? "
"No," she answered; "not a bit.It'll all come right after a while;you'll see."
"Will it, will it?" he begged, and then suddenly his eyes were full of tears.It was a strange thing to see him in his bewildered misery try to pull himself together, and bite his shaking lips as though he vaguely remembered that he was a man."I beg pardon," he faltered: "Isuppose I'm ill."
"I don't know where to put him," Mrs.Bowse was saying half aside;"I've not got a room empty."
"Put him in my bed and give me a shake-down on the floor," said Tembarom."That'll be all right.He doesn't want me to leave him, anyhow."He turned to the money on the table.
"Say," he said to his guest, "there's two thousand five hundred dollars here.We've counted it to make sure.That's quite some money.
And it's yours--"
The stranger looked disturbed and made a nervous gesture.
"Don't, don't!" he broke in."Keep it.Some one took the rest.This was hidden.It will pay.""You see he isn't real' out of his mind," Mrs.Bowse murmured feelingly.
"No, not real' out of it," said Tembarom."Say,"--as an inspiration occurred to him, --"I guess maybe Miss Hutchinson will keep it.Will you, Little Ann? You can give it to him when he wants it.""It's a good bit of money," said Little Ann, soberly; "but I can put it in a bank and pay Mrs.Bowse his board every week.Yes, I'll take it.Now he must go to bed.It's a comfortable little room," she said to the stranger, "and Mrs.Bowse will make you a hot milk-punch.
That'll be nourishing."
"Thank you," murmured the man, still keeping his yearning eyes on her.
"Thank you."
So he was taken up to the fourth floor and put into Tembarom's bed.
The hot milk-punch seemed to take the chill out of him, and when, by lying on his pillow and gazing at the shakedown on the floor as long as he could keep his eyes open, he had convinced himself that Tembarom was going to stay with him, he fell asleep.
Little Ann went back to her father carrying a roll of bills in her hands.It was a roll of such size that Hutchinson started up in his chair and stared at the sight of it.
"Is that the money?" he exclaimed."What are you going to do with it?
What have you found out, lass?"
"Yes, this is it," she answered."Mr.Tembarom asked me to take care of it.I'm going to put it in the bank.But we haven't found out anything."
