Opening the door she found the landing empty and quiet, the setting sun streamed across its coloured spaces, the flowers blazed as if they were standing in a garden.... Joey always went for walks if she were feeling thick and fat, she always went for a long walk; in coats with skirts to match; a costume; never a jacket with a different skirt ... the long cool passage leading away to the invisible door of Mr. Corrie’s room was full of wreathing smoke. Wiggerson rushed across the landing along the passage, followed by Mrs. Corrie, with her head up and her handkerchief to her nose and all her figure tense and angular and strong. Both had passed silently; but there were shriekings on the stairs and the children came at Miriam with cries and screams. “Rollo’ll be _killed_”; “Go to her”; “Go and save vem”; the children shrieked and leaped up and down in front of her. The boy’s white features worked as if they must dislocate; his eyes were black with terror; he wrung his hands. Sybil’s face, scarlet and shapeless and streaming with tears, blazed wrath at Miriam through her green eyes. “Be quiet,” Miriam said in loud tones. “I shall do nothing till you are quiet.” With a shriek the girl lashed at her with the dog-whip. “Save vem, _save_ vem,” shrieked the boy, twisting his arms in the air. “Will you both be quiet _instantly_?” shouted Miriam, as the blood rose to her head, catching and holding the boy. Both children howled and choked; Sybil flung herself forward howling, and Miriam felt her teeth in her wrist. The smoke came pouring out of the little hidden room, coiling itself against the air of the passage like some fascinating silent inevitable grimace. Wiggerson’s figure flying through it stirred it strangely, but it closed behind her and billowed horribly out towards Mrs. Corrie standing just clear of its advance with her handkerchief pressed to her face, quiet, not calling to Wiggerson, waiting where she had disappeared. Miriam could not move. Sybil’s body hung fastened to her own with entwining limbs ... “a fight in the jungle,” a tiger flung fixed like a leech against the breast of a screaming elephant ... the boy had the whip and was slashing at her legs through her thin dress and uttering piercing shrieks. 10 “Stokes is an idjut,” said Mrs. Corrie, going gaily downstairs with the two exhausted white-faced children followed by Wiggerson flitting along with bloodshot blinking eyes.