ng to ask Christine to come round. You must be a
good boy, Robert. You must do as I tell you and go to bed."

So they meant to leave him alone in the house with that dreadful still
thing lying somewhere upstairs. Or perhaps it wasn't really still. It
might have strange powers now. You might come upon it anywhere. You
couldn't be sure. It might even be in your bed. He did not want to
disobey Edith. Just then he could have clung to her. But he could not
go up those stairs. He could not pass those open doors, gaping with
unspeakable things. He felt that if he kept very still, hiding his
face, They would not touch him. There seemed to be a thin--frightfully
thin--partition between him and the world in which they lived, and that
by a sudden movement he might break through. He had to hold fast to
his body. It was beginning to run away again, to start into long
agonized shudderings.

At last a key turned in the latch. Invisible people went up the stairs
in silence. But he knew that Christine was among them. He knew
because of the sense of sweet security and rest that came over him. He
tumbled on to the hearthrug and fell asleep.

He was cold and stiff when the opening of the library door wakened him.
He did not know who had opened the door. All he saw was Christine
coming down the stairs. Her face was old and almost silver grey. She
was not crying like Edith, whose sniffs came assertively and at regular
intervals from somewhere in the hall. There was a still, withdrawn
look about her, as though she were contemplating something unbreakable
that had at last been broken, as though a light had gone out in her for
ever. So that Robert could not run to her as he had meant to do.

It was Edith speaking.

"You won't leave me, will you, Christine? Poor Jim! And then that
man--I should die of fright. Besides, it wouldn't be right--not
proper--to-morrow one of my sisters----"

"Very well. I will spend the night here. But Robert must go to my
people. They won't mind now. I shall be back in half an hour."

She helped him into his reefer coat, which she had brought down with
her. And still he could not speak to her. She was a long way off from
him. As they went into the hall he hid his face against her arm for
fear of the things that he might see. But once they were outside, and
the good night wind rushed against his face, a great intoxicating joy
came over him. He wanted to dance and shout. The D