For a moment he was stunned; then slowly he realized what he had done: the tables were laid for the next morning's breakfast, and he had jumped down straight amongst the cups and plates. He sat up on the floor and began, with his head aching, to staunch the blood that came from the cut. He saw, as in a dream, the door open. Someone was standing there, in a nightshirt, holding a candle; it was Perrin. “Who's there? What's that?” Perrin held a poker in his other hand. Traill got up slowly from the floor. “It is I—Traill,” he stammered. He was still feeling stunned. Perrin held the candle a little closer. “Oh, is it you, Traill?” “Yes, I have been out. I fell on to the plates and things. I am sorry.” “You made a great noise.” Perrin was speaking very slowly. “You woke me up.” “Yes; I am most awfully sorry.” Traill moved towards the door. Perrin still stood there, holding his candle, his nightshirt flapping about his legs. He did not seem inclined to move. “You made a great noise. It is one o'clock.” He said it as though he were Robespierre condemning Louis XVI to execution. “Yes, I know. I'm dreadfully sorry. I broke my key.” Still Perrin did not move. “What are you doing out so late?” he said at last, slowly. What the devil had it to do with Perrin! “I did n't know that this was a girls' school,” Traill said at last, sarcastically. His head was aching, his knee hurt, he was tired, and in a very bad temper. Perrin moved from the door. “It's struck one—coming in like this!” The candle flung a most ridiculous shadow of him on the wall—a huge, gigantic head with hair sticking out of it like spears. Because he was tired and rather hysterical, this suddenly amused Traill enormously. He hurst into a peal of laughter. “I can't help it,” he said, shaking; “you look so funny, so frightfully odd!” Perrin said nothing. He looked at him for a moment. He had been disturbed in his sleep; he had every reason to be very angry. But he said nothing at all. He moved slowly down the passage. Traill followed him in silence; he was suddenly frightened. CHAPTER VI—SÆVA INDIGNATIO I. TO Perrin, in his sleep that night there came, accompanied with roaring wind and crashing sea, a dream of the little man in red and black china that lived on the mantelpiece. He came tip-tap across the floor to him and bent over the bed and whispered in his ear. He had grown in his transit and was large in the leg and trailed behind him a long black gown, and he troubled Mr. Perrin by buzzing like a wasp.