“Oh no my dear,” sounded another voice patiently. Rearing her numb consciousness against a delicious tide of oncoming sleep she threw off the bed-clothes and stumbled to the floor. “You can’t go on like this night after night, my dear.” “Yes I can,” said Miriam in a tremulous faint tone. The sleepless even voice reverberated again in the unbroken sleeplessness of the room. “It’s no use ... I am cumbering the ground.” The words struck sending a heat of anger and resentment through Miriam’s shivering form. She spoke sharply, groping for the matches. 8 Hurrying across the cold stone floor of the kitchen she lit the gas from her candle. Beetles ran away into corners, crackling sickeningly under the fender. A mouse darted along the dresser. She braced herself to the sight of the familiar saucepan, Miss Meldrum’s good beef-tea brown against the white enamel--helpless ... waiting for the beef-tea to get hot she ate a biscuit. There was help somewhere. All those people sleeping quietly upstairs. If she asked them to they would be surprised and kind. They would suggest rousing her and getting her to make efforts. They would speak in rallying voices, like Dr. Ryman and Mrs. Skrine. For a day or two it would be better and then much worse and she would have to go away. Where? It would be the same everywhere. There was no one in the world who could help. There was something ... if she could leave off worrying. But that had been Pater’s advice all his life and it had not helped. It was something more than leaving off ... it was something real. It was not affection and sympathy. Eve gave them; so easily, but they were not big enough. They did not come near enough. There was something crafty and worldly about them. They made a sort of prison. There was something true and real somewhere. Mother knew it. She had learned how useless even the good kind people were and was alone, battling to get at something. If only she could get at it and rest in it. It was there, everywhere. It was here in the kitchen, in the steam rising from the hot beef-tea. A moon-ray came through the barred window as she turned down the gas. It was clear in the eye of the moon-ray; a real thing.