So the arrow polisher is left alone. The finger is writing on the desk and he tries to prepare himself.

It does not let him go for an instant. He gets up from the chair and paces about the room a little, treading quietly, so that Frank and Freda shall notice nothing, moving stealthily. Soon he is sitting as before.

What is going to happen? Trickles of ice are running down his spine. The slow scraping on the desk holds him prisoner. He must stay here. Something must happen.

He is torn by the struggle. One part of him wants to run away and hide and escape. Another tells him he need not bother to try – he will never find a good enough hiding-place. And yet another wants to stay and face what is coming, and accept it. The last impulse becomes the strongest because it joins forces with his numb feeling of impotence.

So he stays where he is, and time passes and passes, but he is unaware of it; to him it seems to be standing still. Once he jumped up. There was a click in the lock of the outer door. But it was Frank and Freda leaving to go to school. Just before they went they had peeped in through a crack in the bedroom door.

Now he is quite alone. He will be alone for hours. What was that?

He listens.

It has been set in motion, repeats the persistent, paralysing warning.

Have I done anything to warrant this? he thinks, but dare not answer. His long vigil while others slept has made him incapable of answering.

There is a small clock standing on a shelf, and he notices now and again that the hands have moved, but they don’t really move at all. They have merely been set in motion.

Suddenly he gives way. His fear constricts him more tightly so that he seizes the arms of the chair and cries out ‘I can’t –.’

Whatever it is he can’t is left open. His cry was weak and dies away unheard in the abandoned apartment.

So the time passes. Then he starts at the sound of the door. Frank and Freda are home again. He dreads their appearance. Don’t come in, he wishes.

But of course the first thing they do is to come and see how their father is. Freda is standing in the doorway immediately. That narrow little face that he has been so fond of.

‘Would you like anything now?’ she asks, half afraid. She feels bound to ask, even if it angers him.

‘No.’

‘Are you feeling better?’

‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Leave me alone.’

She shakes her head. ‘We can’t do that. You must be ill if you won’t eat or sleep.’

He jumps to his feet. ‘Will you and Frank let me alone! I won’t have any doctor, do you hear?’

He sounds so savage that Freda disappears – after all, this is their father, whom they are used to obeying without hesitation. She answers yes, and leaves him. There is a glimpse of Frank behind her. Then they have both gone and the door is closed.