"After our thickly-populated Chelsea," I went on quickly, "it seems
isolated here."

But she did not turn back, and clearly I was saying the wrong thing. A
wave of pity rushed suddenly over me. Was she really frightened,
perhaps? She was imaginative, I knew, but never moody; common sense was
strong in her, though she had her times of hypersensitiveness. I caught
the echo of some unreasoning, big alarm in her. She stood there, gazing
across my balcony towards the sea of wooded country that spread dim and
vague in the obscurity of the dusk. The deepening shadows entered the
room, I fancied, from the grounds below. Following her abstracted gaze a
moment, I experienced a curious sharp desire to leave, to escape. Out
yonder was wind and space and freedom. This enormous building was
oppressive, silent, still.

Great catacombs occurred to me, things beneath the ground, imprisonment
and capture. I believe I even shuddered a little.

I touched her shoulder. She turned round slowly, and we looked with a
certain deliberation into each other's eyes.

"Fanny," I asked, more gravely than I intended, "you are not frightened,
are you? Nothing has happened, has it?"

She replied with emphasis, "Of course not! How could it--I mean, why
should I?" She stammered, as though the wrong sentence flustered her a
second. "It's simply--that I have this ter--this dislike of sleeping
alone."