said Sarah Brown. "There is no magic now
on Mitten Island."

She staggered through the open door of the Shop. "This is Richard's
house," she said to herself as she entered, and felt doubly alone
because Richard was far away, riding to his True Love. She struck her
last match, lit the lantern, and looked round. There was no sound in the
house of Living Alone, she thought there would never again be any magic
sound there to penetrate to her imprisoned hearing. The aprons hanging
from the ceiling near the door flapped in the cold wind, and she thought
they were like grey bats in a cave. The breeze blew out the open
lantern. Ah, how desolate, how desolate....

A piece of paper was impaled upon the counter by means of a headless
hatpin. There was something very largely and badly written on it. Sarah
Brown read: "Well Soup it looks like my Night's come and what dyou think
Sherry's come too. Im an me as gone off to a place e knows that's a fine
place for such a boy as Elbert to be born in so no more at present from
your true Peony."

Sarah Brown climbed up the short stairway, painful step by painful step,
to her cell. She sat on her bed holding her throbbing side, and
breathing with fearful caution. She looked at the empty grate. She put a
cigarette in her mouth, the unconscious and futile answer of the Dweller
Alone to that blind hunger for comfort. But she had no matches, and
presently, dimly conscious that her groping for comfort had lacked
result, she absently put another cigarette into her mouth, and then felt
a fool.

She stared at the cold window. The sky seemed to be nailed carelessly to
it by means of a crooked star or two.

These are the terrible nights of Living Alone, when you have fever and
sometimes think that your beloved stands in the doorway to bring you
comfort, and sometimes think that you have no beloved, and that there is
no one left in all the world, no word, no warmth, nor ever a kindly
candle to be lighted in that spotted darkness that walls up your hot
sight. Again on those nights you dream that you have already done those
genial things your body cries for, or perhaps That Other has done them.
The fire is built and alight at last, a cup of something cool and
beautifully sour stands ready to your hand, you can hear the delicious
rattle of china on a tray in the passage--someone coming with food you
would love to look at, and presently perhaps to eat ... when you feel
better. But again and again you