ing when her ladyship would get to bed, what with
Mrs. Stapleton and all, and commiserated Miss Baker; Miss Baker
moaned a little in self-pity; and Mr. Parker remarked for the fifth
time that it was a wild night. It was an astonishingly serene and
domestic atmosphere: no effort of imagination or wit was required from
anybody; it was enough to make observations when they occurred to the
brain, and they would meet with a tranquil response.

As half-past ten tinkled out from the little yellow marble clock on
the mantelpiece--it had been won by Mrs. Mayle's deceased husband in a
horticultural exhibition--Mrs. Martin said that she must go and have a
look at the scullery to see that all was as it should be; there was no
knowing with these girls nowadays what they might not leave undone;
and Mrs. Mayle preened herself gently with the thought that her
responsibilities were on a higher plane. Mr. Parker made a courteous
movement as if to rise, and remained seated, as the cook rustled out.
Miss Baker sighed again as she contemplated the long conversation that
might take place between the two ladies upstairs before she could get
her mistress to bed.

Once more the tranquil atmosphere settled down on the warm room; the
brass lamp burned brightly with a faint and reassuring smell of
paraffin; the fire presented a radiant cavern of red coals fringed by
dancing flames; and Mr. Parker leaned forwards to shake off the ash of
his cigar.

Then, on a sudden, he paused, for from the passage outside came the
passionless tinkle of an electric bell--then another, and another, and
another, as if some person overhead strove by reiteration on that
single note to cry out some overwhelming need.

II

Overhead in the great empty drawing-room the noise of the wind and
rain, the almost continuous spatter on the glass, and the long hooting
of the gusts, had been far more noticeable than in the basement
beneath. Below stairs the company had been natural and normal, talking
of this and that, in a brightly lighted room, dwelling only on matters
that fell beneath the range of their senses, lulled by warmth and food
and cigar-smoke into a kind of rapt self-contemplation. But up here,
in the gloom, lighted only on this occasion by a single shaded candle,
in a complete interior silence, three persons had sat round a table
for more than an hour, striving by passivity and a kind of
indescribable concentration to ignore all that was presented by the
sen