III.

Mary's bed stood in a corner of the night nursery, and beside it was the
high yellow linen cupboard. When the doors were opened there was a faint
india-rubbery smell from the mackintosh sheet that had been put away on
the top shelf.

One night she was wakened by Catty coming into the room and opening the
cupboard doors. Catty climbed on a chair and took something from the top
shelf. She didn't answer when Mary asked what she was doing, but hurried
away, leaving the door on the latch. Her feet made quick thuds along the
passage. A door opened and shut, and there was a sound of Papa going
downstairs. Somebody came up softly and pulled the door to, and Mary went
to sleep again.

When she woke the room was full of the grey light that frightened her.
But she was not frightened. She woke sitting up on her pillow, staring
into the grey light, and saying to herself, "Jenny is dead."

But she was not afraid of Jenny. The stillness in her heart spread into
the grey light of the room. She lay back waiting for seven o'clock when
Catty would come and call her.

At seven o'clock Mamma came. She wore the dress she had worn last night,
and she was crying.

Mary said, "You haven't got to say it. I know Jenny is dead."

The blinds were drawn in all the windows when she and Mark went into the