So she had indeed come to stay with the Painted Lady if Grizel proved merciless! Oh, what a black he had been! Though originally a farm-house, the cottage was no larger than Aaron's, and of its two front windows only one showed a light, and that through a blind.

Tommy sidled round the house in the hope that the small east window would be more hospitable, and just as he saw that it was blindless something that had been crouching rose between him and it.
"Let go!" he cried, feeling the Painted Lady's talons in his neck.
"Tommy!" was the answer.
"It's you, Elspeth ?" "Is it you, Tommy ?" "Of course.

Whisht!" "But say it is." "It is." "Oh, Tommy, I'm so fleid!" He drew her farther from the window and told her it had all been a wicked lie, and she was so glad that she forgot to chide him, but he denounced himself, and he was better than Elspeth even at that.

However, when he learned what had brought her here he dried his eyes and skulked to the door again and brought back her belongings, and then she wanted him to come away at once.

But the window fascinated him; he knew he should never find courage to come here again, and he glided toward it, signing to Elspeth to accompany him.