Even Jeremy, himself!...
If he had to sacrifice something to save his mother, what would be the hardest sacrifice?
Would it be his Toy-Village, or Mary or Helen, or his soldiers, or his paint-box, or his gold fish that he had in a bowl, or--No, of course, he had known from the first what would be hardest--it would, of course, be Hamlet.
At this stage in his thinking he removed his arm from Hamlet's neck and looked at the animal.

At the same moment the light that had filled the glass-house with a fiery radiance that burnt to the very heart of the place was clouded.

Above, in the sky, black, smoky clouds, rolling in fold after fold, as though some demon were flinging them out across the sky as one flings a carpet, piled up and up, each one darker than the last.

The light vanished; the conservatory was filled with a thick, murky glow, and far across the fields, from the heart of the black wood, came the low rumble of thunder.

But Jeremy did not hear that; he was busy with his thoughts.