"Wait! Mrs. Quayle's house is rather a long way off--one of the little fishermen's cottages on the south beach, you know. I'm not quite sure that she has a second bed. And then she might be alarmed if two of us turned up at this time of night. What if I run over first and make sure?" Again Bessie answered "Yes" and "Yes." "But it's raining heavily now, and, of course, you can't stay out in the streets any longer. Here are my rooms--just here. Why shouldn't you step in and wait? I shall have to go upstairs for an overcoat anyway." Bessie showed no embarrassment, and Victor felt at first that what he was doing was something a little courageous and rather noble. But as soon as they reached the door, and he began to fumble with his key to open it, he became nervous and a voice within him seemed to say, "Take care!" "Come in," he said bravely, but when Bessie brushed him on entering the house he trembled, and from that moment onwards he was conscious of a struggle between his blood and his brain. As he was closing the door on the inside he saw that there was a letter in the letter-box at the back of it, but he left it there, and held out his hand to Bessie to guide her up the stairs, saying: "It's dark here. Give me your hand. Now come this way. Don't be afraid. You shan't fall. I'll take care of you." There were two short flights and then a landing, from which a door opened on either side--on the right to Victor's offices, on the left to his living-rooms. He opened the door on the left, leaving Bessie to stand on the landing until he had found matches and lit the gas. He was long in finding them, and while rummaging in the dark room he heard the girl's quick breathing behind him. "Ah, here they are at last!" he cried in a tremulous voice, and then he lit up a branch under a white globe on one side of the mantelpiece. "Now you can come in," he said, and turning to the window he loosened the cord of the Venetian blind and it came clattering down. Bessie stepped into the room. It was a warm and cosy chamber, with a thick Persian carpet, two easy chairs, an open bookcase full of law books, a desk-table with ink-stand, writing-pad and reading-lamp (looking so orderly as to suggest that no work was done there) and a large pier-glass with a small bust of a pretty Neapolitan girl and a little silver-cased clock in front of it. The clock was striking one. "One o'clock! It was stupid to stay out in the streets so long, wasn't it?" "Yes." "Your hat is dripping. Hadn't you better take it off for the few minutes you'll have to stay?" "Should I?" "Do; and I'll light the gas-fire--a bachelor has to have gas-fires, you know." While he was down on his knees lighting the fire, and regulating its burning from blue to red, Bessie, with trembling fingers, was drawing the pins out of her hat--the wonderful new hat of a few hours ago, now wet and bedraggled. In doing so she pulled down her hair and made a faint cry, "Oh!"