She realized the peril of another minute in the room. The wiring of the house, she had already noticed, with the quickness of an expert, was both thorough and modern. Any moment the turning of a bedside button might flood the room with brilliant light and leave her there, betrayed beyond redemption. “Sssssssh!” she said again sharply, as though in warning, and a moment later dodged out through the door, going as noiselessly as she had come. But the ground was now dangerous, she felt; and she was glad to escape to the comparative freedom of a wider hallway, running at right angles to the one she had just left. This surely led to the back stairs, she argued, as she groped her way steadily forward. She was even debating whether it would not be better to risk the fully-lighted front stairs, rather than lose time as she was doing, when her groping hands came in contact with the cool wood of the polished balustrade. Her foot was on the carpeted second step, when she drew back, with a terrified catch of the breath. The familiar click of the light-button had thrown the entire hall and stairway into dazzling light. A man stood at the foot of the stairs, in his slippered feet, with his hand still on the button. He had not yet seen her; but it was too late to escape. It was the bibulous English butler who had shown her to her room. In a crook of his arm he carried a Sauterne bottle and a nearly empty champagne magnum, carefully recorked. It was plain, Frances argued, that he was pilfering a nightcap for himself. That gave her at least a shred of courage. She hesitated only the fraction of a second. Then she coldly and briskly descended the stairs, with her hot-water bottle in her hand. The butler fell back a step or two at the sudden apparition, blinked at her unsteadily in the strong light, and made a gigantic effort to draw himself up. Her first intention had been to march disdainfully past him; but this, she remembered, was out of the question. It was already midnight, or more, and for all his unsteadiness of limb he was, she knew, a shrewd and capable servant, well trained in his duties. “Well, miss, what is it?” She could see him putting on his official attitude, just as he might draw on his serving-coat. The new nurse, apparently, took cold easily, for she still wore her galoshes. “Which way do I go to the kitchen?” she demanded curtly. “The kitchen, miss, is closed.” He was looking at her with his pale and beady little eyes. “What were you wanting?” “I must have some hot water,” she answered, swaying her instruments of deliverance before her. “There is a bathroom on your floor, miss, two doors to the right of your own door.” He spoke thickly but peremptorily. Frances could plainly see that he was not to be juggled with. “I said hot water, not warm,” she retorted, almost angrily.