* * * * * There came from the bed some stir of movement, and a gasping breath. Then Dennis’s voice, muffled and strangling, as if there was a hand on his throat. “No, no!” it cried. “No---- Ah....” The boy’s breath came thick and fast. “What is it? Who’s there?” he screamed. “Father ... Father....” Colin reached up his hand for the switch and turned on the light. He did not intend to do it; his hand moved as if by some reflex action outside the power of his will, for there was something in that instinctive cry to him which set at work some uncontrollable mechanism within him. Dennis was half out of bed, his face bathed in perspiration, his eyes wide and terrified. With a leap he sprang to Colin, never pausing to think how it was that he came to be standing there in the dark, and clung close to him. “Oh, it’s you,” he said, with his head buried on Colin’s shoulder. “Thank the Lord! Oh, I say, I’ve been so frightened. Something came into the room: I don’t know what it was, but something hellish. I say, it’s not here now, is it?” Colin patted his shoulder. “Why, Dennis, what’s the matter?” he said. “You’ve had a nightmare, that’s all. I came in here a minute ago, and found you asleep with your light burning. I turned it out.” Dennis wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, raising a troubled face, out of which that sheer terror was beginning to fade. “Was that all?” he said. “Are you sure there was nothing that came in? O-o-oh, I thought I was going to die of fright.” Strange was it that so few minutes ago it was through his father’s presence and complicity that the terror had gripped Dennis by the throat, and that now it was that same presence which so quickly restored the boy’s confidence. With his father there he knew that nothing could hurt him, not nightmare, nor phantom, nor the terrors that walk in darkness. “Get back into bed, old boy,” said Colin. “It’s late, you know. You must go to sleep.” Dennis unwound his clinging arms and hopped back into bed. “Oh, do wait two minutes,” he said. “It’s ... it’s awfully rotten of me, but I couldn’t stand to be alone in the dark again this moment. I never had such a horrible nightmare.” “Well, just two minutes,” said Colin. “And what was the nightmare?” Dennis pulled his father down till he sat on the edge of the bed, and held his hand. “I don’t know what it was,” he said, with a shudder. “It felt like the devil. But it won’t come back, will it, when I go to sleep again?” “Of course it won’t. You’re not frightened now, are you?” “No. At least I don’t think so. If you promise me it won’t come back, I’m not frightened.” “Yes, I promise you that,” said Colin.