f 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 abandoning himself to riot and
extravagance.

She felt pleasure in his company; for the first time since her father's
death she was a little frightened and uneasy. She might even have gone
to him and cried on his shoulder had he given her any encouragement,
but he did not speak to her except to say that he had already eaten. He
was still a little sulky with her.

When she had finished her meal she sat in her accustomed chair by the
fire, her head propped on her hands, looking into the flame, and there,
half-asleep, half-awake, memories, conversations, long-vanished scenes
trooped before her eyes as though they were bidding her a long
farewell. She did not, as she sat there, sentimentalise abou