Alone in bed I went over the day's events: from porridge pan to plums, from lumps to Aunt Jael's smile. Suddenly, causelessly in the way one finds in a dream lost objects whose hiding place is long forgotten—I saw the stone cover of the plum jar lying in the middle of the front-room carpet. Remembrance followed vision, and I knew I had hastily put the jar away without it. At all events the cover must be restored; if by any wild chance the face at the door had not been Aunt Jael's this tell-tale object would anyhow give me away if she should find it; if the face were hers the cover would be fine "evidence."
I got up. I always lay awake till after midnight; Aunt Jael and Grandmother were long ago in bed. The day's horrible excitements had made me more cowardly than usual. The darkness frightened me, the creaking stairs frightened me, my conscience frightened me. Shapes loomed everywhere. The pillar at the foot of the banisters towered down on me like some avenging ghost. At last I reached the front-room door; I turned the key slowly and carefully; it clanged unpiteously in the silence. I peeped in. The moonlight piercing through the drawn blind lit up ghoulishly the god's evil face. I stared a moment; his features moved; and I fled in frantic terror.
Though the object I sought was but a couple of yards away, I could not for all the world have dared a single step nearer. I shut the door and, praying fervently all the way, crept up to bed again. I would go and pick up the cover of the jar first thing in the morning; Aunt Jael never went in till after breakfast; the daylight I could dare.
CHAPTER VII: THE END OF THE WORLD
All night I did not sleep. Conscience busy with the day past and fear anxious for the day ahead gave me quite enough to think about, and I was feverish and overwrought. As soon after daylight as I dared I set forth downstairs. It was early enough for me to retrieve the tell-tale object before Aunt Jael was astir and light enough for me to brave Lord Benamuckee. At the foot of the stairs I met Aunt Jael, fully dressed, nearly two hours before ordinary time; smiling.
"Good morning, child. You're up betimes."
I did not dare a tu quoque, but uttered a feeble tale about helping Mrs. Cheese to clean the boots, Friday being her busiest day.
Aunt Jael, by a singular coincidence, had risen in the same helping spirit, and the two of us burst upon the astonished Mrs. Cheese in the midst of her first matutinal movements. Though I was by now quite certain that the face at the door had been Aunt Jael's, this did not prevent my wishing to restore the jar-cover to its place. It was preparing for the best, so to speak, on the faint off-chance that I was deluded. Meanwhile her smile prepared me for the worst. It was more complex than a blow, for it portended blows to come and added to their evil charm by heralding them afar off. Aunt Jael's floggings had at least this merit, that as a rule they came suddenly; the stick was across my back before I knew where I was.