Alwynne, later in the morning, supplementing her instructions, paused a moment at the child's desk. But Louise gave no sign. Alwynne hesitated. She herself was averse from verbal sympathy. Also she was pressed for time, and Clare, she knew, wanted her. The one o'clock bell shattered her indecision. She gave her directions and hurried away. Louise packed her books together and went home. She endured the cheerful noisy lunch; carried out some small commissions for her step-mother; shepherded the troop of small boys into the paddock behind the garden and saw them established at their games. She stayed a moment with the round two-year-old, sprawling by the pile of coats, but he, too, had his amusements. Every pocket tempted his enquiring fingers. He ignored her. She went back to the house. Habit brought her for the fiftieth time to the attic, and she had opened the door before she remembered. She looked about her. An iron bedstead, covered by a crude quilt, stood where the trunk of books had lain. A square of unswept carpet lay before it. There was a deal night-table and a candlestick of blue tin, with matches and a guttered candle. Across a chair lay a paper-back, face downwards, and a pair of soiled red corsets. The ivy had been cut away from the window, and the sunlight cast no fantastic frieze, but a squared, black shadow on the floor. The air was close, and a little rank. Louise shrank from it. "Mother?" she said; and then: "You've gone away, haven't you? It's no use calling?" She waited. The uneven water-jug rattled in its basin. She spoke again-- "Mother, I know it's all spoiled here, but couldn't you come? Just for a little while, Mother? I'm most miserable. Please, Mother?" There was no answer. "What shall I do?" cried Louise wildly. "What shall I do? Oh, what shall I do?" She turned from that empty place, stumbled to her room, and flung herself across her bed. She was shaken by her misery, as a dog shakes a rat. She cried, her head on her arms, till she was sick and blinded. Loneliness and longing seared her as with irons. The clock ticked, and the sunshine poured into the room. The shouts of the children, the crack of the ball on bat sounded faintly. The house slept. Two hours passed. Somewhere a clock chimed and boomed. Four o'clock.