With an obscure instinct to postpone giving the cheque to his mother, he stared intently at those splashing drops, to see what they really did do under the flickering lamplight!

No, they didn’t “dance.” Each individual drop, as it fell, seemed to draw up the water of that dark puddle in a tiny pyramid; but there were so many of them that it was hard to focus the attention upon any single one of those minute waterspouts. When, however, he lifted his head, the volume of rain driving eastward along pavement and gutter took a continuity of form, like the identity of some desperate living thing, bent on pursuit or escape.

Against this cold, blind presence he now resolutely pushed on. “If there’s a light in mother’s room,” he said to himself, “I’ll go straight in and give it to her.”