It was a strange thing which roused me at least a little; it was the smell of burning. I couldn't think what it was, or where it came from. Then I remembered. It was the rice which I had put into the oven to soak. The milk had caught; it wanted stirring. I got up, and I went to stir it. It was burnt badly; the rice was all stuck to the bottom; the pudding was spoilt. We should never be able to eat it for dinner. The thought of dinner made me look at the clock. It was dinner time. No wonder the pudding was spoilt. It had been in the oven all that time without being once stirred. What was I to do? There was nothing cooked. The children must be hungry. Something made me look round. There they were, standing at the door. They were evidently still afraid, for they still were hand in hand, half in the room, half out. I found my voice and words. Yet, somehow, it didn't sound as if it was me who was speaking. 'If you children are hungry, you'll have to have a piece of bread and butter or jam. Dinner isn't ready; and the fire's gone down.' They said nothing, but looked at each other, as if they wondered if it was I who spoke to them, and what it was I said. I had some difficulty in keeping myself from being cross. It seemed stupid of them to be standing there as if they couldn't make out who or what I was. It was only my thinking that it might make them more afraid that kept me from starting to scold. I went to the cupboard, and cut some bread and jam, and sat them down at the table, and set them to make their dinner off that. It was funny how they seemed to take it all as a matter of course, and ate their bread and jam as if that was the sort of dinner they were used to every day. They followed me with their eyes wherever I went, and never said a word. It was funny, too, how calm I felt. All the rage had gone clean out of me. While they ate I made up the fire, and did odd jobs about the room. Doing something seemed to clear my head. As it got clearer, I grew quieter. That seemed funny too. Something in me seemed to be dead. I felt more like a machine than a human being, and moved about, feeling as if I had been wound up and had to go. After a while there came a knock at the door. I had just got out a pile of mending, and was sitting down to do the children's socks. Jimmy and Pollie were quieter than I had ever known them. I was conscious of their quietude in a curious, uninterested sort of way. They were playing at some game in a corner, talking to each other in whispers. They'd neither of them spoken to me since I'd been left alone. When I went to see who was at the door, I found it was Mr. FitzHoward. I showed him into the sitting-room, and sat down to my mending again without a word. I dare say he thought my manner was strange, for he took up his favourite position in front of the fire, and, for a moment or two, was as silent as I was. At last he spoke. 'Well--and how are things?' 'James is dead.'