I remember that Madame, contrary to her wont, gave the man some money. By the puzzling light of the carriage-lamps we got in and took our seats. 'Go on,' screamed Madame, and drew up the window with a great chuck; and we were enclosed in darkness and silence, the most favourable conditions for thought. My sleep had not restored me as it might; I felt feverish, fatigued, and still very drowsy, though unable to sleep as I had done. I dozed by fits and starts, and lay awake, or half-awake, sometimes, not thinking but in a way imagining what kind of a place Dover would be; but too tired and listless to ask Madame any questions, and merely seeing the hedges, grey in the lamplight, glide backward into darkness, as I leaned back. We turned off the main road, at right angles, and drew up. 'Get down and poosh it, it is open,' screamed Madame from the window. A gate, I suppose, was thus passed; for when we resumed our brisk trot, Madame bawled across the carriage-- 'We are now in the 'otel grounds.' And so all again was darkness and silence, and I fell into another doze, from which, on waking, I found that we had come to a standstill, and Madame was standing on the low step of an open door, paying the driver. She, herself, pulled her box and the bag in. I was too tired to care what had become of the rest of our luggage. I descended, glancing to the right and left, but there was nothing visible but a patch of light from the lamps on a paved ground and on the wall. We stepped into the hall or vestibule, and Madame shut the door, and I thought I heard the key turn in it. We were in total darkness. 'Where are the lights, Madame--where are the people?' I asked, more awake than I had been. ''Tis pass three o'clock, cheaile, bote there is always light here.' She was groping at the side; and in a moment more lighted a lucifer match, and so a bedroom candle. We were in a flagged lobby, under an archway at the right, and at the left of which opened long flagged passages, lost in darkness; a winding stair, barely wide enough to admit Madame, dragging her box, led upward under a doorway, in a corner at the right. 'Come, dear cheaile, take your bag; don't mind the rugs, they are safe enough.' 'But where are we to go? There is no one!' I said, looking round in wonder. It certainly was a strange reception at an hotel. 'Never mind, my dear cheaile. They know me here, and I have always the same room ready when I write for it. Follow me quaitely.' So she mounted, carrying the candle. The stair was steep, and the march long. We halted at the second landing, and entered a gaunt, grimy passage. All the way up we had not heard a single sound of life, nor seen a human being, nor so much as passed a gaslight. 'Voila! here 'tis, my dear old room. Enter, dearest Maud.'