flung into the midst of one. She sat up in bed, knowing from the
thumping of her heart that she was seized with panic but finding, in
the first flash, no reason for her alarm. The room was pitch black
with shadows of light here and there, but she had with her, in the
confusion of her sleep, uncertainty as to the different parts of the
room. What had awakened her? Of what was she frightened? Then
suddenly, as one slits a black screen with a knife, a thin line of
light cracked the darkness. As though some one had whispered it in
her ear she knew that the door was there and the dark well of
uncertainty into which she had been plunged was suddenly changed
into her own room where she could recognise the window, the chest of
drawers, the looking-glass, the chairs. Some one was opening her
door and her first thought that it was of course her father was
checked instantly by the knowledge, conveyed again as though some
one had whispered to her, that her father was dead.

The thin line of light was now a wedge, it wavered, drew back to a
spider's thread again, then broadened with a flush of colour into a
streaming path. Some one stood in the doorway holding a candle.
Maggie saw that it was Uncle Mathew in his shirt and trousers.

"What is it?" she said.

He swayed as he stood there, his candle making fantastic leaps and
shallows of light. He was smiling at her in a silly way and she saw
that he was drunk. She had had a horror of drunkenness ever since,
as a little girl, she had watched an inebriated carter kicking his
wife. She always, after that, saw the woman's bent head and stooping
shoulders. Now she knew, sitting up in bed, that she was frightened
not only of Uncle Mathew, but of the house, of the whole world.