He swayed as he stood there, his candle making fantastic leaps and shallows of light. He was smiling at her in a silly way and she saw that he was drunk. She had had a horror of drunkenness ever since, as a little girl, she had watched an inebriated carter kicking his wife. She always, after that, saw the woman's bent head and stooping shoulders. Now she knew, sitting up in bed, that she was frightened not only of Uncle Mathew, but of the house, of the whole world.
She was alone. She realised her loneliness in a great flash of bewilderment and cold terror as though the ground had suddenly broken away from her and she was on the edge of a vast pit. There was no one in the house to help her. Her father was dead. The cook and the maid were sunk in heavy slumber at the other end of the house. There was no one to help her. She was alone, and it seemed to her that in the shock of that discovery she realised that she would always be alone now, for the rest of her life.
"What is it, Uncle Mathew?" she said again. Her voice was steady, although her heart hammered. Some other part of her brain was wondering where it was that he had got the drink. He must have had a bottle of whisky in his room; she remembered his shyness when he said good-night to her.
He stood in the middle of the floor, swaying on his feet and smiling at her. The flame of the light rose and fell in jerks and spasms.
"I thought," he said, "I'd come—to see m'little Maggie, m'little niece, jus' to talk a lill bit and cheer her up—up." He drew nearer the bed. "She'll be lonely, I said—lonely—very—aren't you—lonely Maggie?"
"It's very late," she said, "and you're dropping grease ail over the floor with that candle. You go back to bed, uncle. I'm all right. You go back to bed."
"Go back? No, no, no. Oh no, not back to bed. It'll soon be mornin'. That'll be jolly-jolly. We'll talk—together till mornin'."
He put the candle on a chair, nearly falling as he did so, then came towards her. He stood over her, his shirt, open at the neck, protuberating over his stomach, his short thick legs swaying. His red, unshaven face with the trembling lips was hateful to her.
Suddenly he sat on the edge of her bed and put his hands out towards her. He caught her hair.
"My little Maggie—my little Maggie," he said.