Downstairs the lock of the front door clicked.  There was something steadfast and reassuring in the sound, as though it were trying to send a message.  “Don’t worry, I shall come back.”  But Robert could not feel or care any more.  He was struggling with his body as a helpless rider struggles with a frantic runaway horse.  He found out for the first time that his body wasn’t himself at all.  It was something else.  It did what it wanted to.  He could only cling on to it for dear life.  But gradually it seemed to weaken, to yield to his exhausted efforts at control, and at last lay stretched out, relaxed, drenched with an icy sweat.  The real himself sank into seas of darkness from which convulsive, tearing shudders, less and less frequent, dragged him, with throbbing heart and starting eyes, back to the surface.

His bandage had slipped off.  He held it tight between his hands.  He was too numb and stupefied even to think of Francey, but there was magic in that dirty, blood-stained handkerchief.  It might have been a saint’s relic, or a Red Indian’s totem, preserving him from evil.  He knew nothing about saints or totems, but he knew that Francey was good and stronger than any of them.

Downstairs the silence remained unbroken.  It was an aghast silence, heavy with remorse and shame and self-loathing.  It was like the thick dregs lying at the bottom of the cup.  But to Robert it was just silence.  He sank into it, deeper and deeper, until he slept.

He began to dream.  The dreams walked about inside his brain, and were red-coloured as though they were lit up by the glow of a hidden furnace.  All the people who took part in them came and went in great haste.  Or they made up hurried tableaux—­Francey holding the stick and looking at him in white anger, Christine huddled on the floor, his father black and monstrous towering over her.  Finally, they all disappeared together, and Robert knew that it was because the Dragon had woken up and was coming to devour them.  He was climbing up from the dining-room.  Robert heard his tread on the stairs—­heavy, stumbling footsteps such as one would expect from a dragon on a narrow, twisting staircase.  They came nearer and nearer, and with every thud Robert seemed to be lifted with a jerk from the depths in which he was lying, and to be aware of his body stiffening in terror.

Then at the last step the Dragon fell, and Robert was awake.  He sat bolt upright.  There had been no mistaking that dull thump.  It lingered in his ears like the echo of a thunder-clap.  The Dragon had fallen and killed himself, for he did not move.  It was pitch dark in the room, but very slowly and quietly, under the pressure of an invisible hand, the door opposite his bed began to open.  The light outside made a widening slit in the darkness.  It was like sitting in a theatre watching the curtain go up on a nightmare.  He could see the banisters, the glow from the hall beneath,