Then began a most exciting promenade. Marjorie, with eyes set in a stony glare, marched downstairs into the hall. She stood for a moment by the front door, as if speculating whether to unlock it or not. She could hear Miss Norton breathing just behind her, and was almost tempted to try the experiment of shooting back at least one bolt, but decided it was wiser not to run the risk. Instead she walked into the house mistress's study, turned over a few papers in an abstracted fashion, threw them back on to the table, and went towards the window. Here again Miss Norton shadowed her closely, evidently suspecting that she had designs of opening it and climbing out. She turned round, however, and, with apparently unseeing eyes, stared in the teacher's face, and stole stealthily back up the stairs. At her own bedroom door she paused, in seeming uncertainty as to whether to enter or not. Miss Norton laid a gentle hand on her arm, and guided her quietly into her room and towards her bed. Marjorie decided to take the hint. Wandering about in a nightdress, with bare feet, was a very cold performance, and it was all she could do to prevent herself from palpably shivering. Keeping up her part, she gave a gentle little sigh, got into bed, laid her head on her pillow, and closed her eyes. She could feel Miss Norton pulling the clothes over her, and, with another quivering sigh, she sank apparently into deepest slumber. The teacher stayed a few minutes watching her, then, as she never moved, went very quietly away and closed the door after her. Nothing was said at head-quarters next morning about the night's adventures, but Miss Norton looked rather carefully at Marjorie, asked her if she felt well, and told her she was to go to Nurse Hall every day at eleven in the Ambulance Room for a dose of tonic. Marjorie, who had not intended her practical joke to run to such lengths, felt rather ashamed of herself, but dared not confess. "There'd be a terrific scene if Norty knew," she said to Betty, and Betty agreed with her. In the afternoon, when Marjorie ran up to her cubicle for a pocket-handkerchief, to her surprise she found Mrs. Morrison there superintending a man who was measuring the window. She wondered why, for nothing, apparently, was wrong with it; but nobody dared ask questions of the Empress, so she took her clean handkerchief and fled. Later on that day she learned the reason. "We're to have brass bars across our window," Sylvia informed her. "I heard the Empress and the Acid Drop talking about it. They're fearfully expensive in war-time, but the Empress said: 'Well, the expense cannot be helped; I daren't risk letting the poor child jump through the window. Her door must certainly be locked every night.' And Norty said: 'Yes, it's a very dangerous thing.'" "Are they putting the bars up for me?" exclaimed Marjorie.