There was a brief pause while her imagination grasped the thought; then:  “You must have been very tired,” she said.

“I was,” he answered dryly and reached to take the lantern from the wall.  At the foot of the steps he halted and put the light down to pick up his bag, which he opened.  “Here’s a bunch of my handkerchiefs,” he said.  “They are bigger than yours.  They should make you at least a pillow-case.  Good night.”

The setter rose to follow inquiringly at his heels; the lantern swung gently to his tread and, as his shape disappeared in the gloom, his whistle, sweet, soft, almost tender, fluted back to her.  It was the “Good night” from the opera of Martha.  And Miss Armitage smiled in the face of Fear and turned resolutely to go in.

But the next moment she was back again over the threshold.  “Mr. Tisdale!” she called, and the currents held so long in check surged in her voice.  “Mr. Tisdale!”

Instantly the lantern swung an arc.  He came quickly back to the steps.  “Well,” he said, breaking the pause, “what is the trouble?”

“I know I must seem foolish—­but—­please don’t go—­yet.”  Her position on the edge of the porch brought her face almost on a level with his.  Her eyes in the semi-darkness were luminously big; her face, her whole body quivered.  She leaned a little towards him, and her nearness, the low, vibrant intensity of her voice, set his pulses singing.

“I really can’t stay in that room,” she explained.  “Those beds all but touch, and she, the mother, has crowded in, dressed as she is, to sleep with the children.  There isn’t any air to breathe.  I—­I really can’t make myself lie down—­there.  I had rather spend the night here on the piazza.  Only—­please wait—­until—­”

Tisdale laughed his short, mellow note.  “You mean you are afraid of the dark, or is it the cougar?”

“It’s both and the lightning, too.  There!  See how it plays along those awful heights; javelins of it; whole broadsides.  I know it is foolish, but I can’t help feeling it is following me.  It singles me out, threatens me as though I am—­guilty.”

“Guilty?  You?  Of what?” Tisdale put down the lantern and came up the steps.  “See here, Miss Armitage, come take your chair.”  He moved it around from the table and laid his hand on her arm, impelling her into the seat.  “Now face it out.  Those flashes of heat lightning are about as dangerous as the Aurora Borealis.  You ought to know that.”

Then, because the personal contact had set his blood racing, he moved away to the edge of the porch and stood frowning off up the gorge.  He knew she covered her face with her hands; he believed she was crying, and he desired beyond all reason to take her to his heart and quiet her.  He only said:  “But I understand.  I have seen strong men just as foolish before an electrical storm, and the bravest woman I ever knew lost her grip one still morning just from solitude.”