CHAPTER 21The knocking on the door came through the fog which had settled over Ellen Caddle’s mind. It would lift a little when she was down at the Cottage with plenty to do and Miss Vinnie fidgetting in and out the way she always did, but when she’d got home and done what there was to do, and Albert not back till after closing time, then it would come down on her thick and heavy until she was lost in it. Come getting on for a fortnight Albert hadn’t been in for his tea—
The knocking came through the fog. She got up and went to the door, and all at once she was dreadfully afraid. They came in out of the darkness, and the darkness came in with them—came right in and stayed, like you heard it read in church: “Outer darkness, there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” But it was the oute
