She found her latch-key and entered the house. Only a dim light burned in the hall; her mother, of course, was at the Club, and the maid and Magda were far away in their chambers on the third floor. She tossed her wrap on a chair, switched on a brighter light, and examined the painful spot on her arm, a red mark already beginning to turn a nasty blue, with two tiny specks of drying blood. She shuddered, and trudged wearily up the stairs to her room. The empty silence of the house oppressed her. She wanted human companionship--safe, trustworthy, friendly company, anyone to distract her thoughts from the eerie, disturbing direction they were taking. She was still in somewhat of a panic, and suppressed with difficulty a desire to peep fearfully under the bed. "Coward!" she chided herself. "You knew what to expect." Suddenly the recollection of her parting words recurred to her. She had told Nick--if Nick had indeed heard--to come to the house, to come at once, tonight, if he could. A tremor of apprehension ran through her. Suppose he came; suppose he came as her own Nick, and she admitted him, and then--or suppose that other came, and managed by some trick to enter, or suppose that unholy fascination of his prevailed on her--she shivered, and brushed her hand distractedly across her eyes. "I can't stand it!" she moaned. "I'll have to give up, even if it means never seeing Nick again. I'll have to!" She shook her head miserably as if to deny the picture that had risen in her mind of herself and that horror alone in the house. "I won't stay here!" she decided. She peeped out of the west windows at the Doctor's residence, and felt a surge of relief at the sight of his iron-gray hair framed in the library window below. He was reading; she could see the book on his knees. There was her refuge; she ran hastily down the stairs and out of the door. With an apprehensive glance along the street she crossed to his door and rang the bell. She waited nervously for his coming, and, with a sudden impulse, pulled her vanity-case from her bag and dabbed a film of powder over the mark on her arm. Then his ponderous footsteps sounded and the door opened. "Hello," he said genially. "These late evening visits of yours are becoming quite customary--and see if I care!" "May I come in a while?" asked Pat meekly. "Have I ever turned you away?" He followed her into the library, pushed a chair forward for her, and dropped quickly into his own with an air of having snatched it from her just in time. "I didn't want your old arm-chair," she remarked, occupying the other. "And what's the trouble tonight?" he queried. "I--well, I was just nervous. I didn't want to stay in the house alone." "You?" His tone was skeptical. "You were nervous? That hardly sounds reasonable, coming from an independent little spit-fire like you." "I was, though. I was scared." "And of what--or whom?" "Of haunts and devils."