They walked up the few shallow steps together, she still very close to him.  And then, when they were opposite her door, she exclaimed, but in a very low whisper:  “Now you must say the prayer with me—­for me!”

“The prayer?  What do you mean, Bubbles?”

“You know,” she muttered: 

  “Matthew, Mark, Luke and John,
   Bless the bed that I lie on—­

“What’s after that?” she asked.

He went on, uttering the quaint words very seriously, very reverently: 

  “Four corners to my bed,
   Four Angels round my head;
   One to watch and one to pray,
   One to keep all fears away”—­

“No,” she exclaimed fretfully. “‘One to keep my soul in bed.’  That’s what I say.  I don’t want my poor little soul to go wandering about this beautiful, terrible old house when I’m asleep.  Good-night, Goody goody!”

She put up her face as a child might have done, and he bent down and kissed her, as he might have kissed a wilful, naughty child who had just told him she was sorry for something she had done.

“God bless you,” he said huskily.  “God bless and keep you from any real harm, Bubbles my darling.”

CHAPTER VI

As regarded Lionel Varick, the second day of his house-party at Wyndfell Hall opened most inauspiciously, for, when approaching the dining-room, he became aware that the door was not really closed, and that Mr. Burnaby and his niece were having what seemed to be an animated and even angry discussion.

“I don’t like this place, and I don’t care for your fine friend, Mr. Varick—­” Such was the very unpleasant observation which the speaker’s unlucky host overheard.

There came instant silence when he pushed open the door, and Helen with heightened colour looked up, and exclaimed:  “My uncle has to go back to London this morning.  Isn’t it unfortunate?  He’s had a letter from an old friend who hasn’t been in England for some years, and he feels he must go up and spend Christmas with him, instead of staying with us here.”

Varick was much taken aback.  He didn’t believe in the old friend.  His mind at once reverted to what had happened the night before.  It was the seance which had upset Mr. Burnaby—­not a doubt of it!  Without being exactly unpleasant, the guest’s manner this morning was cold, very cold—­and Varick himself was hard put to it to hide his annoyance.

He had taken a great deal of trouble in the last few months to conciliate this queer, disagreeable, rather suspicious old gentleman, and he had thought he had succeeded.  The words he had overheard when approaching the dining-room showed how completely he had failed.  And now Bubbles Dunster, with her stupid tomfoolery, was actually driving Mr. Burnaby away!

But Mr. Burnaby’s host was far too well used to conceal his thoughts, and to command his emotions, to do more than gravely assent, with an expression of regret.  Nay more, as some of the others gradually lounged in, and as the meal became a trifle more animated, he told himself that after all Mr. Burnaby might have turned out a spoil-sport, especially with regard to a secret, all-important matter which he, the convener of this curiously assorted Christmas party, had very much at heart.