Ralph Stock

“ Meg was alone, and for the first time in her life knew what that meant—to stand, as it were, a detached spectator, watching one's world and everything it held crumble and fade. The pyjama man was going—in another two days he would be gone—with a laugh even as he had come. The thought had a quickening influence; she glanced swiftly about her, as if seeking a tangible weapon of revenge, and as if by a miracle she found one.
A mere thread of yellow light it was, cast from the workshop window, and feebly vying with a brilliant moon that now rode clear of the avenue trees. ”

“ At the workshop window she paused. The lamp was there—alight, on the table by the window—but “the work” was gone.
The blood ebbed from her face, leaving it pale as the moonlight about her; then, as her feverish glance discovered the familiar manuscript on a bookshelf behind the door, an indescribable little sound—half sigh, half hiss—escaped her, and, leaning through the window, she upset the lamp with a steady hand. ”