“Good God!” he cried, “what a night you have had.  How wicked, how abominable, how criminal—­”

[Illustration:  “Good god,” He cried “What A night you have had”]

“It has been a dreadful night,” said the girl, “but it is nobody’s fault.”

“Of course it is somebody’s fault,” answered Geoffrey.  “It must be.  Do you mean to tell me no one is to blame when I have been sitting all night with my feet on the fender, and you—­”

“Certainly,” said she with an extraordinarily wide, sweet smile, “I could wish we might have changed places.”

“I wish to Heaven we might,” returned Geoffrey, and meant it.  Never before had he yearned to bear the sufferings of another.  He had often seen that it was advisable, suitable just that he should, but burningly to want to was a new experience.

“Thank you,” said the girl, “but I’m afraid there is nothing to be done.”

“Nothing to be done!” He dropped on his knees before the black monster of a stove, “Do you suppose I’m here to do nothing?”

“You are here, I think, for shelter from the storm.”

It had not occurred to him before that she looked upon him as a chance wanderer.

“That shows your ignorance of the situation.  I am here to rescue you.  I left my fireside for no other reason.  As I came along I said at every blast, ‘that poor, poor girl.’  I set out to bring you to safety.  I begin to think I was born for no other reason.”

She smiled rather wearily, “Your coming at all is so strange that I could almost believe you.”

“You may thoroughly believe me, more easily perhaps when I tell you I did not particularly want to come.  I started out at dawn very cross and cold because I did not know what I was going to find....”

“But I thought you said you did know that you were going to rescue a girl?”

“A girl, yes.  But what’s a mere girl?  How many thousand girls have I seen in my life?  Is that a thought to turn a man’s head?  What I did not know was that I was going to find you.”

“The fire will never burn with the chimney strewn on the floor,” she said mildly.

“Well, I’ve said it, you see,” he answered, “and you won’t forget it, even if you do change the subject.”  He turned his attention to the fire.  Where is the man, worthy of the name to whom the business of fire building is not serious?

Presently seeing he needed help she dropped to her knees beside him and tried to shove a piece of wood into place.  In the process her numbed fingers touched his, and he instantly dropped everything to catch her hand in both of his.

“Your hands are as cold as ice,” he said, holding them tightly, and thanking Fate that this bounty had fallen to his lot.

She withdrew them.  “You are too conscientious,” she said.  “That is not part of the duty of a rescue party.”