"I do hope you don't mind," he said, and drew the ring off very
gently. Then, as he dropped to the ground, "Not here," he said. "I
don't know why, but not here."
And they all passed behind the white Psyche, and once more the
bicycle lamp seemed suddenly to come to life again as Gerald held
it in front of him, to be the pioneer in the dark passage that led
from the Hall of but they did not know, then, what it was the Hall
of.
Then, as the twisting passage shut in on them with a darkness that
pressed close against the little light of the bicycle lamp, Kathleen
said, "Give me the ring. I know exactly what to say."
Gerald gave it with not extreme readiness.
"I wish," said Kathleen slowly, "that no one at home may know
that we've been out tonight, and I wish we were safe in our own
beds, undressed, and in our nightgowns, and asleep."
And the next thing any of them knew, it was good, strong, ordinary
daylight not just sunrise, but the kind of daylight you are used to
being called in, and all were in their own beds. Kathleen had
framed the wish most sensibly. The only mistake had been in
saying "in our own beds" because, of course, Mabel's own bed was
at Yalding Towers, and to this day Mabel's drab-haired aunt cannot
understand how Mabel, who was staying the night with that child
in the town she was so taken up with, hadn't come home at eleven,
when the aunt locked up, and yet she was in her bed in the
morning.
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