'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.'