"I will ring my bell," said Sir George Repington.

The two old friends took each a candle, and went upstairs to bed. From the corridor casement they looked out.

"What a laugh she had," says Sir George. A gust of wind extinguished his candle, and he shuddered.

"That is the way I shall go out."

"That is the way we shall all go out," said Mr. Ripple.

"And nothing afterwards?"

"Darkness."

"And nothing else?"

"Perhaps a hand in the darkness."

Chapter the Thirty-sixth
THE SCARLET DAWN