printed upon the otherwise spotless board floor,
"I got caught in a gust on the mountain," he explained
awkwardly, in a constraint which deepened
with the other's continued silence; "I ought to have
cleaned up before I came in... it's terrible dark
out." He rose, tentatively, but the priest waved
him back into the chair. Opening a door opposite
the one by which Gordon had entered, and which
obviously gave upon an outer shed, Merlier procured
a roughly made mop; and, returning, he obliterated
all traces of the mud. Suddenly, to Gordon's
dismay, his supreme discomfort, he stooped to a
knee, and began to remove the former's shoes.

"Hey!" Gordon protested; "don't do that; I can
tend to my own feet." He was prepared to kick out,
but he recognized that a struggle could only make
the situation insufferable, and he submitted in an
acute, writhing misery to the ministrations. The
priest rose with Gordon's shoes and placed them,
together with the mop, outside the door. He then
brought from an inner room an immaculate, white
cambric shirt, a pair of trousers, old but carefully
ironed, and knitted, grey worsted slippers.

"If you will change," he said in a low, impersonal
voice, "I will see what there is for you to eat."
He left the room, and Gordon gratefully shifted into
the fresh, dry clothes. The trousers were far too
large; they belonged, he recognized, to the priest,

[[106]]

p105 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p106w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p107

v?