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Rh outside. Then she tried the door after her, but to her dismay she discovered that there was no key, and that the bolt was frail and unreliable. She tried to reason herself out of her terror of Trant.

"He has probably been drinking," she said to herself, "though he looked cool enough."

She sat down without undressing. It seemed to her that there were all kinds of disquieting sounds about. The roar of the machinery, which she could not at first understand, was uncanny, and so were the occasional detonations from the blasting works. By and by the noise in the bar subsided a little. The hotel itself was fairly quiet. It was now about midnight. She heard steps along the corridor, and they set her trembling again. The steps paused at Trant's door. Some one went in.

Yes, the partitions were horribly thin. She could hear the voice distinctly. It was the voice of Blake, and yet she was conscious that he was speaking almost in a whisper.

"Are you ready?"

Trant murmured something. She could not distinguish the words.

Blake went on, still in the same low clear voice, and with an accent of contempt. "Naturally you don't understand. One must follow one's star."

Again a murmur from Trant, of which she only distinguished the words "eight thousand."

A laugh—an odd mocking laugh. "The member for Luya. Droll! There's a certain humour in the situation." And then a sentence in French. She could not make it out. A sound as of some one moving about and opening and shutting things followed. Presently one went out—both she imagined at first, for there was a complete silence. Elsie could bear it no longer. She must go and find Ina, and ask her to stay with her. She did not know what had frightened her. And why should she be frightened either of Trant or of Blake? But she was frightened for all that. Her nerves were like stretched wires. To remain there till morning seemed an impossibility. She took up her candle