had, perhaps, some fear of the Reverend Charles, at any rate they
scampered and scurried now behind the wainscoting as though
conscious of their release. "Even the rats are glad," Maggie thought
to herself. In the uncertain candle-light the fancy seized her that
one rat, a very large one, had crept out from his hole, crawled on
to the bed, and now sat on the sheet looking at her father. It would
be a horrible thing did the rat walk across her father's beard, and
yet for her life she could not move. She waited, fascinated. She
fancied that the beard stirred a little as though the rat had moved
it. She fancied that the rat grew and grew in size, now there were
many of them, all with their little sharp beady eyes watching the
corpse. Now there were none; only the large limbs outlined beneath
the spread, the waxen face, the ticking clock, the strange empty
shape of his grey dressing-gown hanging upon a nail on the wall.
Where was her father gone? She did not know, she did not care--only
she trusted that she would never meet him again--never again. Her
head nodded; her hands and feet were cold; the candle-light jumped,
the rats scampered . . . she slept.

When it was quite dark beyond the windows and the candles were low
Maggie came downstairs, stiff, cold, and very hungry. She felt that
it was wrong to have slept and very wrong to be hungry, but there it
was; she did not pretend to herself that things were other than they
were. In the dining-room she found supper laid out upon the table,
cold beef, potatoes in their jackets, cold beetroot, jelly, and
cheese, and her uncle playing cards on the unoccupied end of the
table in a melancholy manner by himself. She felt that it was wrong
of him to play cards on such an occasion, but the cards were such
dirty grey ones and he obtained obviously so little pleasure from
his amusement that he could not be considered to be wildly