“May I go right to my room?” she repeated as the landlord stood gaping at her rather foolishly.  She imagined that he had not heard, being a little deaf ... or that, possibly, the poor chap was a trifle slow witted.  And again she smiled on him kindly and again he noted the shiver bespeaking both chill and fatigue.

But to Poke Drury there had come an inspiration.  Not much of one, perhaps, yet he quickly availed himself of it.  Hanging in a dusty corner near the long dining table, was an old and long disused guest’s book, the official road house register.  Drury’s wandering eye lighted upon it.

“If you’ll sign up, Miss,” he suggested, “I’ll go have Ma get your room ready.”

And away he scurried on his crutch, casting a last look over his shoulder at his ruder male guests.

The girl went hastily as directed and sat down at the table, her back to the room.  The book she lifted down from its hanging place; there was a stub of pencil tied to the string.  She took it stiffly into her fingers and wrote, “Winifred Waverly.”  Her pencil in the space reserved for the signer’s home town, she hesitated.  Only briefly, however.  With a little shrug, she completed the legend, inscribing swiftly, “Hill’s Corners.”  Then she sat still, feeling that many eyes were upon her and waited the return of the road house keeper.  When finally he came back into the room, his slow hesitating gait and puckered face gave her a suspicion of the truth.

“I’m downright sorry, Miss,” he began lamely.  “Ma’s got somethin’ ... bad cold or pneumonia ... an’ she won’t budge.  There’s only one more bed room an’ Lew Yates’s wife has got one cot an Lew’s mother-in-law has got the other.  An’ they won’t budge.  An’ ...”

He ended there abruptly.

“I see,” said the girl wearily.  “There isn’t any place for me.”

“Unless,” offered Drury without enthusiasm and equally without expectation of his offer being of any great value, “you’d care to crawl in with Ma ...”

“No, thank you!” said Miss Waverly hastily.  “I can sit up somewhere; after all it won’t be long until morning and we start on again.  Or, if I might have a blanket to throw down in a corner ...”

Again Poke Drury left her abruptly.  She sat still at the table, without turning, again conscious of many eyes steadily on her.  Presently from an adjoining room came Drury’s voice, subdued to a low mutter.  Then a woman’s voice, snapping and querrulous.  And a moment later the return of Drury, his haste savouring somewhat of flight from the connubial chamber, but certain spoils of victory with him; from his arm trailed a crazy-quilt which it was perfectly clear he had snatched from his wife’s bed.

He led the way to the kitchen, stuck a candle in a bottle on the table, spread the quilt on the floor in the corner, made a veritable ceremony of fastening the back door and left her.  The girl shivered and went slowly to her uninviting couch.