the small son of the amiable pawnbroker. He
scribbled on the back of this bill, gave it to Edred, and then they all
went out on the roof and shovelled snow in on to Mr. Parados, and when
he came out on the roof very soon and angry, they slipped round the
chimney-stacks and through the trap-door, and left him up on the roof in
the snow, and shut the trap-door and hasped it.

And then the nurse caught them and Richard was sent to bed. But he did
not go. There was no sleep in that house that night. Sleepiness filled
it like a thick fog. Dickie put out his rushlight and stayed quiet for a
little while, but presently it was impossible to stay quiet another
moment, so very softly and carefully he crept out and hid behind a tall
press at the end of the passage. He felt that strange things were
happening in the house and that he must know what they were. Presently
there were voices below, voices coming up the stairs--the nurse's voice,
his cousins', and another voice. Where had he heard that other voice?
The stopped-clock feeling was thick about him as he realized that this
was one of the voices he had heard on that night of the first magic--the
voice that had said, "He is more yours than mine."

The light the nurse carried gleamed and disappeared up the second flight
of stairs. Dickie followed. He had to follow. He could not be left out
of this, the most mysterious of all the happenings that had so
wonderfully come to him.

He saw, when he reached the upper landing, that the others were by the
window, and that the window was open. A keen wind rushed through it, and
by the blown candle's light he could see snowflakes whirled into the
house through the window's dark, star-studded square. There was
whispering going on. He heard her words, "Here. So! Jump."

And then a little figure--Edred it must be; no, Elfrida--climbed up on
to the window-ledge. And jumped out. Out of the third-floor window
undoubtedly jumped. Another followed it--that was Edred.

"It _is_ a dream," said Dickie to himself, "but if they've been made to
jump out, to punish them for getting even with old Parrot-nose or
anything, I'll jump too."

He rushed past the nurse, past her voice and the other voice that was
talking with hers, made one bound to the window, set his knee on it,
stood up and jumped; and he heard, as his knee touched the icy
window-sill, the strange voice say, "Another," and then he was in the
air falling, falling.

"I shall wake when I