ain. Or rather the bread, I should say. It's precious
little butter it brings in."

"What's it called?" she asked.

"'The Toad in the Hole,'" he said.

"What a funny name! What does it mean?"

"I don't know." He shook his head. "It meant something when I began it,
but the meaning doesn't seem important now."

In a little while he left her, saying: "Now if I were you I'd take a
little nap, and later on I'll wake you and we'll go and see your aunt."

She slept, lying back in the blue armchair in front of the fire, with
only the leaping flames as light to the room. Strange and dim but
unspeakably sweet were her dreams. It seemed that she had escaped for
ever from Paul and Grace and Skeaton, and that in some strange way
Martin was back with her again, the same old Martin, with his laugh and
the light in his eyes and his rough red face. He had come into the
room--he was standing by the door looking at her; she ran to him, her
hands stretched out, cries of joy on her lips, but oven as she reached
him there was a cry through the house: "Your Aunt Anne is dead! Your
Aunt Anne is dead!" and all the bells began to toll, and she was in the
Chapel again and great crowds surged past her. Aunt Anne's bier borne
on high above them all. She cried aloud, and woke to find Mr. Magnus
standing at her side; one glance at him told her that he was in
terrible distress.

"You must come at once," he said. "Your aunt may have only a few
minutes to live."

She followed him, still only half-awake, rubbing her eyes with her
knuckles, and feeling as though she were continuing that episode when
Martha had led her at the dead of night into her aunt's bedroom.

The chill of the passages however woke her fully, and then her one
longing and desire was that Aunt Anne should be conscious enough to
recognise her and be aware of her love for her.

The close room, with its smell of medicines and eau-de-Cologne and its
strange breathless hush, frightened her just as it had done once
before. She saw again the religious picture, the bleeding Christ and
the crucifix, the high white bed, the dim windows and the little table
with the bottles and the glasses. It was all as it had been before. Her
terror grew. She felt as though no power could drag her to that bed.
Something lurked there, something horrible and unclean, that would
spring upon her and hold her down with its claws ...

"Maggie!" said the clear faint voice that she knew so well. Her terror