studied afresh the schedules of accommodation for
other municipal buildings that had been competed for in the past. Much
as he hated detail, he stooped rather humbly to detail that night, and
contended with it in all honesty. He worked for hours before he thought
of lighting a cigarette.

It was something uncanny beyond the large windows that first gently and
perceptibly began to draw away his mind from the profusion of town halls
on the desk, and so indirectly reminded him of the existence of
cigarettes. When he lighted a cigarette he stretched himself and glanced
at the dark windows, of which the blinds had not been pulled down. He
understood then what was the matter. Dawn was the matter. The windows
were no longer quite dark. He looked out. A faint pallor in the sky, and
some stars sickening therein, and underneath the silent square with its
patient trees and indefatigable lamps! The cigarette tasted bad in his
mouth, but he would not give it up. He yawned heavily. The melancholy of
the square, awaiting without hope the slow, hard dawn, overcame him
suddenly.... Marguerite was a beautiful girl; her nose was marvellous;
he could never forget it. He could never forget her gesture as she
intervened between him and her father in the basement at Alexandra
Grove. They had painted lamp-shades together. She was angelically kind;
she could not be ruffled; she would never criticize, never grasp, never
exhibit selfishness. She was a unique combination of the serious and the
sensuous. He felt the passionate, ecstatic clinging of her arm as they
walked under the interminable chain of lamp-posts on Chelsea Embankment.
Magical hours!... And how she could absorb herself in her work! And what
a damned shame it was that rascally employers should have cut down her
prices! It was intolerable; it would not bear thinking about. He dropped
the cigarette and stamped on it angrily. Then he returned to the desk,
and put his head in his hands and shut his eyes.

He awakened with a start of misgiving. He was alone in the huge house
(for the basement was under the house and, somehow, did not count).
Something was astir in the house. He could hear it through the doors
ajar. His flesh crept. It was exactly like the flap of a washing-cloth
on the stone stairs; it stopped; it came nearer. He thought inevitably
of the dead Mrs. Haim, once charwoman and step cleaner. In an instant he
believed fully in all that he had ever heard about ghosts and spiri