Benton crossed the room and threw open another door.
"Here's a nook I fixed up for you, Stella," he said briskly. "It isn't
very fancy, but it's the best I could do just now."
She followed him in silently. He set her two bags on the floor and
turned to go. Then some impulse moved him to turn back, and he put both
hands on her shoulders and kissed her gently.
"You're home, anyway," he said. "That's something, if it isn't what
you're used to. Try to overlook the crudities. We'll have supper as soon
as you feel like it."
He went out, closing the door behind him.
Miss Estella Benton stood in the middle of the room fighting against a
swift heart-sinking, a terrible depression that strove to master her.
"Good Lord in Heaven," she muttered at last. "What a place to be
marooned in. It's--it's simply impossible."
Her gaze roved about the room. A square box, neither more nor less,
fourteen by fourteen feet of bare board wall, unpainted and unpapered.
There was an iron bed, a willow rocker, and a rude closet for clothes in
one corner. A duplicate of the department-store bargain rug in the other
room lay on the floor. On an upturned box stood an enamel pitcher and a
tin washbasin. That was all.
She sat down on the bed and viewed it forlornly. A wave of sickening
rebellion against everything swept over her. To herself she seemed as
irrevocably alone as if she had been lost in the depths of the dark
timber that rose on every hand. And sitting there she heard at length
the voices of men.
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