The story opens with the description of a village in late autumn.

It has been raining for some time heavily, and the road has become covered with a deep layer of black mud.

An old woman--a small proprietor--is sitting at home with a friend, drinking tea and trying to read the future by means of a pack of cards.

This occupation is suddenly interrupted by the entrance of a female servant, who announces that she has discovered an old man, apparently very ill, lying in one of the outhouses.

The old woman goes out to see her uninvited guest, and, being of a kindly nature, prepares to have him removed to a more comfortable place, and properly attended to; but her servant whispers to her that perhaps he is a vagrant, and the generous impulse is thereby checked.
When it is discovered that the suspicion is only too well founded, and that the man has no passport, the old woman becomes thoroughly alarmed.
Her imagination pictures to her the terrible consequences that would ensue if the police should discover that she had harboured a vagrant.
All her little fortune might be extorted from her.