Jane was sitting in her armchair in the chilly room. The radio was switched off and she wasn’t reading. Her face was blank, but her expression changed as I came in. She looked away from me quickly, the way you’d pretend to be innocent if you were caught on your way to scamper up a neighbor’s tree after their tamarinds, but you weren’t actually anywhere near the tree yet.

“I tried to light the fire and it wouldn’t go on,” Jane said cautiously, still not meeting my eyes.

She hadn’t had to do that on her own before. She couldn’t kneel, though she was very good at leaning over, and could even touch her toes, to make up for her knees hardly bending at all. It was an awkward way to get at the fire.

Guilt tore through me. I put down the cipher machine carefully, and laid the book on top of it—excited as I was, Jane was my first responsibility, and I’d left her here alone in the cold for half an hour at least. I looked at the meter. There was no gas flowing.

“It needs another shilling,” I said. “Oh, Jane, I’m so sorry! Why didn’t you call me? I was just down the passage in the loo!” I reached for the shilling jar and dropped in a coin. There was a moment of very quiet stillness in which I could hear the meter start to whir. I bent down to turn on the gas tap so I could light the fire.

And then I realized that the gas was already on.

She’d turned on the gas tap and hadn’t turned it off again. If she’d started the meter herself without lighting the fire, the gas could have run and run, and filled the room. Maybe she would have sat there in the cold until she fell asleep again. How long would it be before the gas killed you?

It looked like an accident. But even so, what if I’d come back into the room and found her stone dead? After the warning I’d been given—how could I bear it? Just the thought of it made my eyes prick with tears. Accident or on purpose—I didn’t know which would be worse. And it would be my fault for leaving her alone if anything happened, my fault for not being there with her.

I could scarcely bear even to think about it.

I knelt to light the fire and turned it up. I wanted her to get warm.

“Tell me when you want the fire on,” I begged. “Please just tell me. Don’t try to do it yourself. Let me take care of it. I’m sorry I was away so long just now—”