"Man killed here last night," said the voice briefly. Fanny moved
towards the light and saw an old man with a shawl upon his shoulders,
who held a candle fixed in the neck of a bottle.

"I am English," she said to the old man. "I am alone. I want a room
alone."

"I've a room ... If you're not American!"

"I don't know what kind of a hole this is," said the American
wrathfully. "I think you'd better come right back to the 'Y.' Say, here,
what kind of a row was this last night you got a man killed in?"

"Kind of row your countrymen make," muttered the old man, and added
"Bandits!"

Soothing, on the one hand, entreating on the other, the girl got rid of
her new friend, and effected an entrance into the hotel. ("If hotel it
is!" she thought, in the brief passage of a panic while the old man
stooped to the bolts of the door.)

"I've got rooms enough," he said, "rooms enough. Now _they've_ gone.
Follow me."

She followed his candle flame and he threw open a door upon the ground
floor.

"I've no light to give you."

"Yet I must have a light."