al-box.
What an odd, incongruous ornament to have in a living-room!

The last bedroom candlestick had gone, and temporarily blinded by the
sudden darkness, he groped his way up the broad, shallow stairs to the
corridor which he knew ultimately led to his room.

He was setting his feet cautiously one before the other on the landing,
his eyes by now accustomed to the grey dimness of a winter night, for
the great window above the staircase was uncurtained, when _Something_
suddenly loomed up before him, and he felt his right arm gripped.

He gave a stifled cry. And then, all at once, he knew that it was
Bubbles--only Bubbles! He felt her dear nearness rushing, as it were,
all over him. It was all he could do to prevent himself from taking her
in his arms.

"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 whi