He twisted round in her arms
and sat down on the bed. In that moment of his collapse, Gyp snatched
up her baby and fled out, down the dark stairs, hearing him stumbling,
groping in pursuit. She fled into the dining-room and locked the door.
She heard him run against it and fall down. Snuggling her baby, who was
crying now, inside her nightgown, next to her skin for warmth, she stood
rocking and hushing it, trying to listen. There was no more sound. By
the hearth, whence a little heat still came forth from the ashes,
she cowered down. With cushions and the thick white felt from the
dining-table, she made the baby snug, and wrapping her shivering self in
the table-cloth, sat staring wide-eyed before her--and always listening.
There were sounds at first, then none. A long, long time she stayed like
that, before she stole to the door. She did not mean to make a second
mistake. She could hear the sound of heavy breathing. And she listened
to it, till she was quite certain that it was really the breathing of
sleep. Then stealthily she opened, and looked. He was over there, lying
against the bottom chair, in a heavy, drunken slumber. She knew that
sleep so well; he would not wake from it.
It gave her a sort of evil pleasure that they would find him like that
in the morning when she was gone. She went back to her baby and, with
infinite precaution, lifted it, still sleeping, cushion and all, and
stole past him up the stairs that, under her bare feet, made no sound.
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