to know now is what are you going to do? Where are you sleeping?
What are you going to think about? I'll stay--yes, yes, that's
what it must be: I must stay. And I detest strange beds. I'll
stay, you SHAN'T be alone. Do you hear me, Lawford?--you SHAN'T
be alone!'

Lawford gazed gravely. 'There is just one little thing I want to
ask you before you go. I've wormed out an extraordinary old
French book; and--just as you say--to pass the time, I've been
having a shot at translating it. But I'm frightfully rusty; it's
old French; would you mind having a look?'

Mr Bethany blinked and listened. He tried for the twentieth time
to judge his friend's eyes, to gain as best he could some
sustained and unobserved glance at this baffling face. 'Where is
your precious French book?' he said irritably.

'It's upstairs.'

'Fire away, then!' Lawford rose and glanced about the room.
'What, no light there either?' snapped Mr Bethany. 'Take this; I
don't mind the dark. There'll be plenty of that for me soon.'

Lawford hesitated at the door, looking rather strangely back.
'No,' he said, 'there are matches upstairs.' He shut the
door after him. The darkness seemed cold and still as water. He
went slowly up, with eyes fixed wide on the floating luminous
gloom, and out of memory seemed to gather, as faintly as in the
darkness which they had exorcised for him, the strange pitiful
eyes of the night before. And as he mounted a chill, terrible,