"Are you awake, Mark?" he heard his mother whisper outside.
He answered with a cry of exultation and relief.
"Oh, Mother," he sighed, clinging to the soft sleeves of her
dressing-gown. "I thought it was being the end of the world."
"What made you think that, my precious?"
"I don't know. I just woke up, and the room was upside down. And first I
thought it was an earthquake, and then I thought it was the Day of
Judgment." He suddenly began to chuckle to himself. "How silly of me,
Mother. Of course it couldn't be the Day of Judgment, because it's
night, isn't it? It couldn't ever be the Day of Judgment in the night,
could it?" he continued hopefully.
Mrs. Lidderdale did not hesitate to reassure her small son on this
point. She had no wish to add another to that long list of nightly fears
and fantasies which began with mad dogs and culminated in the Prince of
Darkness himself.
"The room looks quite safe now, doesn't it?" Mark theorized.
"It is quite safe, darling."
"Do you think I could have the gas lighted when you really _must_ go?"
"Just a little bit for once."
"Only a little bit?" he echoed doubtfully. A very small illumination was
in its eerie effect almost worse than absolute darkness.
"It isn't healthy to sleep with a great deal of light," said his mother.
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