when she knelt by her bedside to say her prayers, but, try as she might, she could find no words with which to thank her heavenly Father for the blessings of the day and to implore their continuance for the next, as was her invariable custom.  When she got up from her knees, she hoped that the disabilities of her present situation would atone for any remissness of which she had been guilty.  Although she was very tired, it was a long time before she slept.  She lay awake, to think long and lovingly of Perigal.  This, and Jill’s presence, were the two things that sustained her during those hours of sleeplessness in a strange, fearsome house, troubled as she was with the promise of infinite pain.

That night she loved Perigal more than she had ever done before.  It seemed to her that she was his, body and soul, for ever and ever; that nothing could ever alter it.  When she fell asleep, she did not rest for long at a stretch.  Every now and then, she would awaken with a start, when, for some minutes, she would listen to the ticking of the American clock on the mantelpiece.  Her mind went back to the vigil she had spent during Miss Nippett’s kit night of life.  Then, it had seemed as if the clock were remorselessly eager to diminish the remaining moments of the accompanist’s allotted span.  Now, it appeared to Mavis as if the clock were equally desirous of cutting short the moments that must elapse before her child was born.

The next morning, she was awakened soon after eight by the noise of a tray being banged down just inside the door, when she gathered that someone had brought her breakfast.  This consisted of coarsely cut bread, daubed with disquieting-looking butter, a boiled shop egg, and a cup of thin, stewed tea.  As Mavis drank the latter, she recollected the monstrous suggestion which Mrs Gowler had insinuated the previous evening.  The horror of it filled her mind to the exclusion of everything else.  She had quite decided to leave the house as soon as she could pack her things, when a pang of dull pain troubled her body.  She wondered if this heralded the birth of her baby, which she had not expected for quite two days, when the pain passed.  She got out of bed and was setting about getting up, when the pain attacked her again, to leave her as it had done before.  She waited in considerable suspense, as she strove to believe that the pains were of no significance, when she experienced a further pang, this more insistent than the last.  She washed and dressed with all dispatch.  While thus occupied, the pains again assailed her.  When ready, she went downstairs to the kitchen, followed by Jill, to find the room deserted.  She called “Mrs Gowler” several times without getting any response.  Before going to her box to get some things she wanted, she gave Jill a run in the enclosed space behind the house.  When Mavis presently went upstairs with an armful of belongings from her box, she heard a voice call from the further side of a door she was passing: