But she was sliding towards him again, and again she clutched his arm. "No, no," she whispered. "Let's wait just a little longer, Bill. I--I don't feel quite comfortable in that room. I wonder if they'd give me a new room to-morrow? It's funny, I'm not a bit frightened at what they call the haunted room here--the room that's next to Aunt Blanche's, in the other wing of the house. A woman who killed her little stepson is supposed to haunt that room." "I know," said Donnington shortly. "I've been reading about it in a book downstairs. _I_ shouldn't care to sleep in a room where such a thing had been done--ghost or no ghost!" And then Bubbles said something which rather startled him. "Bill," she whispered, leaning yet closer to him, "_I_ raised that ghost two nights ago." "What do you mean?" he asked sternly. "I mean that Aunt Blanche and that tiresome Pegler of hers had already been here a week and nothing had happened. And then--the first night I was in the house the ghost appeared!" She was shivering now, and, almost unwillingly, he put his arm round her again. "Rot!" he exclaimed. "Don't let yourself think such things, Bubbles--" "I know you don't believe it, Bill, but I _have_ got the power of raising Them." "I don't know whether I believe it or not," he said slowly. "And I--I sometimes wonder if _you_ believe it, Bubbles, or if you're only pretending?" There was a pause. And then Bubbles said in a strange tone: "'Tisn't a question of believing it now, Bill. I _know_ it's true! I wish it wasn't." "If it's true," he said, "or even if you only believe it's true, what on earth made you do what you did to-night?" "It was so deadly," she exclaimed, "so deadly dull!" She yawned. "You see, I can't help yawning even at the recollection of it!" And in the darkness her companion smiled. "I felt as if I wanted to wake them all up! Also I felt as if I wanted to know something more about them than I did. Also"--she hesitated. "Yes?" he said questioningly. "I rather wanted to impress Aunt Blanche." The words came slowly, reluctantly. "I wonder what made you want to do that?" asked Donnington dryly. "Somehow--well, you know, Bill, that sort of cool unbelief of hers stings me. She's always thought I make it all up as I go along." "You do sometimes," he said in a low voice. "I used to, Bill--but I don't now: it isn't necessary." He turned rather quickly. "Honest Injun, Bubbles?" "Yes. Honest Injun!" There was a pause. "What do you think of Varick?" she suddenly whispered. "I think _Mr._ Varick," answered Donnington coldly, "is a thoroughly nice sort of chap. I like his rather elaborate, old-fashioned manners." "He's a queer card for all his pretty manners," muttered Bubbles; and somehow Donnington felt that something else was on the tip of her tongue to say, but that she had checked herself, just in time.