“Bill?  That is you, isn’t it?” she asked in a low whisper.  “I’m so frightened—­so frightened!  I should have come down long ago—­but I thought some of the others were still there.  Oh!  I wish I’d come down!  I’ve been waiting up here so long—­and oh, Bill, I’m very cold!” She was pressing up close to him, and he put his arm round her—­in a protecting, impersonal way.

“I wish we could go and sit down somewhere,” she went on plaintively.  “It’s horrible talking out here, on the landing.  I suppose it wouldn’t do, Bill, for you to come into my room?”

“No, that wouldn’t do at all,” he said simply.  “But look here, Bubbles—­would you like to go downstairs again, into the hall?  It’s quite warm there,”—­he felt that she was really shivering.

“I’m cold—­I’m cold!”

“Put on something warmer,” he said—­or rather ordered.  “Put on your fur coat.  Is it downstairs?  Shall I go and fetch it?”

She whispered, “It’s in my room—­I know where it is.  I know exactly where Pegler put it.”

She left him standing in the corridor, and went back into her room.  The door was wide open, and he could see that she was wearing a white wrapper covered with large red flowers—­some kind of Eastern, wadded dressing-gown.  He heard a cupboard door creak, and then she came out of the room dragging her big fur coat over her dressing-gown; but he saw that her feet were bare—­she had not troubled to put on slippers.

“Go back,” he said imperiously, “and put some shoes on, Bubbles—­you’ll catch your death of cold.”

How amazing, how incredible, this adventure would have appeared to him even a year ago!  But it seemed quite natural now—­simply wilful Bubbles’ way.  There was nothing Bubbles could do which would surprise Donnington now.

“Don’t shut your door,” he muttered.  “It might wake someone up.  Just blow out the candles, and leave the door open.”

She obeyed him; and then he took her arm—­again blinded by the sudden obscurity in which they were now plunged.

“I hate going downstairs,” she said fretfully.  “Somehow I feel as if downstairs were full of Them!”

“Full of them?” he repeated.  “What on earth do you mean, Bubbles?”

And Bubbles murmured fearfully:  “You know perfectly well what I mean.  And it’s all my fault—­all my fault!”

He whispered rather sternly back:  “Yes, Bubbles, it is your fault.  Why couldn’t you leave the thing alone just for a little while—­just through the Christmas holidays?”

“I felt so tempted,” she muttered.  “I forget who it was who said ‘Temptation is so pleasing because it need never be resisted.’”

He uttered an impatient exclamation under his breath.

“Let’s sit down on the staircase,” she pleaded, “I’m warmer now.  I think this would be a nice place to sit down.”

She sank down on one of the broad, low steps just below the landing, and pulled him down, nestling up close to him.  “Oh, Bill,” she whispered, “it is a comfort to be with you—­a real comfort.  You don’t know what I’ve gone through since I came up to bed.  I felt all the time as if Something was trying to get at me—­something cruel, revengeful, miserable!”