and when she nodded more collectedly the little ghost slipped out
relieved by the door. "Russian colonel ... I must get up. Fancy making
that boy call me! Why couldn't someone older ... I must get up."

He had left the electric light burning in her room, but out in the
corridor all was black and hushed as she had left it the night before
when she had gone to bed. Behind the kitchen door there was a noise of
water running in the sink. She opened the door, and there was the
wretched child again, still in his shirt, rinsing out her coffee-pot by
the light of one candle. Well, since he was doing it ... Poor child! But
she must have her coffee. By the time she was dressed he tapped again
and brought in the tray with coffee, bread and jam on it. Setting it
down, he looked it over with an anxious face. "Zucker," he said, and
disappeared to fetch it. She filled her thermos bottle with the rest of
the coffee which she could not finish, and put two of the slices of grey
bread into the haversack, then crept downstairs and out into the black
street where the gas lamps still burnt and the night sentry still paced
up and down in the spectral gloom. Over the river hung a woolly fog,
imprisoning the water; but as she crossed the bridge she noticed where
its solidity was incomplete and torn, and into the dark water which lay
at the bottom of such crevasses a lamp upon the bridge struck its
arrowed likeness. It was a good seven minutes' walk to the garage, and
she tried to get warm by running, but the ice crackling in the gutters
and between the cobble stones defied her, and her hands ached with cold
though she put them in turn right through her blouse against her heart
to warm them as she ran. Fetching her car she drove to the Hotel Royal,
and settled down to wait.

A porter came out and swept the steps of the hotel, and a puff of his
dust caught her in the face. He laid a fibre mat on each stone step, and