Creeping softly downstairs, she switched off the electric light at the end of the lower landing, and, shading her candle with her hand, passed along in the darkness to No. 4. Without pausing a moment she entered, holding up one arm in a dramatic attitude, and making her eyes glare wildly from her whitened face. The effect was beyond all that she had anticipated. Such a scream of agonized fear came from the bed in the corner that, alarmed at what she had done, Flossie turned and fled. As she ran through the door she realized that somebody was hastening along the dark passage, and, afraid of being discovered, she turned suddenly and rushed up the short flight of steps that led to Honor's bedroom, blowing out her candle as she went. She crouched for a few moments outside the door of No. 8, then, hearing no footsteps pursuing her, she ventured to steal down again and make a dash for the stairs and the upper landing, where she whisked into No. 13 with all possible speed. "It was a narrow shave!" she said to herself. "If that was Vivian, and she had caught me, I expect she'd have made herself uncommonly disagreeable." In the meantime, Vivian had returned to the recreation room, and told the story of Evelyn's groundless fears to the elder girls assembled there. "A shock of this kind is extremely bad for Evie," said Meta. "She had a nervous fever four years ago, and has been so fragile and highly-strung ever since. She was sent to Chessington because we hoped the bracing air might do her good. I remember she used to have night terrors when she was a wee child, but we thought she had quite got over them." "She looks very white and delicate," said Vivian. "She's all eyes. If she were my sister, I should like to see her less 'nervy'." "Perhaps I had better run upstairs to her," said Meta, rather anxiously. "Now I think of it, I remember she always seems most relieved when May and Trissie and I make our appearance at nine-thirty." Meta found the landing in total darkness, a most unusual occurrence, as the electric light was always left on there. She felt her way along by the wall, and as she did so she was aware of somebody coming towards her from the opposite end of the long corridor. Whoever it was carried a light in her hand, so small as to make only a faint glimmer, but enough to allow Meta to perceive that she turned into No. 4. The next moment a cry of frantic fear issued from the room. Meta hurried forward, her heart throbbing wildly, while the figure, rushing from the room, and showing in its hasty flight a white-veiled head, darted up the steps to No. 8, and disappeared, light and all. It did not take Meta more than three seconds to reach her sister's bedside. Strangled sounds issued from under the clothes, where Evelyn lay cowering in mortal terror; and again, as Meta placed her hand on the bed, came that convulsive, half-stifled cry. "Evie! Evie dear! Don't you know me?" exclaimed Meta.