It stood so for the space of six heart-beats.  The window slipped from her hand and swung back on its hinges.  The cloud was heaved from the edges of the world, and face and figure were wiped out by the great grey sweep of the dawn.  Lucia (strangely as it seemed to her afterwards) was not startled by the apparition, but by the aspect of the world it had appeared in.  She stood motionless, as if afraid of waking her own fear; she caught the lattice, drew it towards her and deliberately secured it by the hasp.  She turned with relief from the terrible twilight of the windows to the darkness of the room.  She crossed it with slow soft footsteps, lest she should give her terror the signal to pursue.

There was a slight stir on the hearth as a mound of ashes sank and broke asunder, opening its dull red heart.

Lucia turned in the direction of the sound, came forward and saw that she was not alone.

Stretched on the rug in front of the fireplace with his feet towards her lay Mr. Rickman.

Her first feeling was of relief, protection, deliverance.  She stood looking at him, finding comfort in the sheer corporeality of his presence.  But as she looked at him that emotion merged in concern for Mr. Rickman himself.  He lay on his back in a deep sleep; one arm was flung above his head, the hand brushing back his damp hair; his forehead was beaded with the thick sweat of exhaustion.  He must have been lying so for hours, having dropped off to sleep when the night was still warm.  He had thrown back his coat and loosened his shirt-collar, and lay undefended from the draught that raked the floor.  The window at this end of the room had been left open too, and the fire was almost dead.

Lucia looked doubtfully at the window.  She knew its ways; it sagged on its hinges and was not to be shut without the grating shriek of iron upon stone.  She looked, still more doubtfully, at Mr. Rickman.  His face in the strange light showed white and sharp and pathetically refined.

And as she looked her heart was filled with compassion for the helpless sleeper.  She moved very softly to the fireplace, where an oak chest stood open stored with wood; she gathered the embers together and laid on them a few light logs.  The first log dropped through the ashes to the hearth, and Mr. Rickman heaved a deep sigh and turned on his side.

Lucia knelt there motionless, till his breathing assured her that he still slept.  With swift noiseless movements she went on building up the dying fire.  The wood crackled; a little flame leapt up, and Mr. Rickman opened his eyes.  For a moment he kept them open, fixed in sleepy wonder on the woman who knelt beside him by the hearth.  He was obscurely aware that it was Lucia Harden, but his wonder was free from the more vivid and disturbing element of surprise; for he had been dreaming about her and was still under the enchantment of his dream.  Never had she seemed more beautiful to him.