He went back into the alley, braced himself in the angle of a brick pier and waited.  He neither stamped his feet nor flailed his arms about to drive off the cold.  He just stood still with the patience of his immemorial ancestor, waiting.  Unconscious of the lapse of time, unconscious of the figures that presently began straggling out of the narrow door, that were not she.

Presently she came.  A buffet of wind struck her as she closed the door behind her, and whipped her unbuttoned ulster about, but she did not cower under it, nor turn away—­stood there finely erect, confronting it.  There was something alert about her pose—­he couldn’t clearly see her face—­that suggested she was expecting somebody.  And then, not loud, but very distinctly: 

“Roddy,” she said.

He tried to speak her name, but his dry throat denied it utterance.  He began suddenly to tremble.  He came forward out of the shadow and she saw him and came to meet him, and spoke his name again.

“I saw you when you went out,” she said.  “I was afraid you mightn’t wait.  I hurried as fast as I could.  I’ve—­w-waited so long.  Longer than you.”

They were so near together now, that she became aware how he was trembling—­shuddering fairly.

“You’re c-cold,” she said.

He managed at last to speak, and as he did so, reached out and took her by the shoulders.  “Come home,” he said.  “You must come home.”

At that she stepped back and shook her head.  But he had discovered while his hands held her, that she was trembling, too.

The stage door opened again to emit a group of three of the ponies.

“My Gawd,” one of them shrilled, “what a hell of a night!”

They stared curiously at Dane and the big man who stood there with her, then scurried away down the alley.

“We can’t talk here,” he said.  “We must go somewhere.”

She nodded assent and they moved off side by side after the three little girls, but slower.  In an accumulation of shadows, half-way down the alley, he reached out for her arm.  It might have begun as an automatic act—­just an unconscious instinct to prevent her stumbling, there in the dark.  But the moment he touched her, the quality of it changed.  He gripped her arm tight and they both stood still.  The next moment, and without a word, they moved on again.  At the corner of the alley, they turned north.  This was on Clark Street.  Finally: 

“Are you all right, Roddy?  And the babies?” she managed to say.  “It’s a good many days since I’ve heard from Portia.”  And then, suddenly, “Was it because anything had gone wrong that you came?”

“I didn’t know you were here until I saw you on the stage.”

This was all, in words, that passed until they reached the bridge.  But there needed no words to draw up, tighter and tighter between them, a singing wire of memories and associations; there was no need, even, of a prolonged contact between their bodies.  He had let go her arm when they came out of the alley, and they walked the half-mile to the bridge side by side and in step, and except for an occasional brush of her shoulder against his arm, without touching.