Mrs.Morel sat alone.

On the hob the saucepan steamed; the dinner-plate lay waiting on the table.

All the room was full of the sense of waiting, waiting for the man who was sitting in his pit-dirt, dinnerless, some mile away from home, across the darkness, drinking himself drunk.

Paul stood in the doorway.
"Has my dad come ?" he asked.
"You can see he hasn't," said Mrs.Morel, cross with the futility of the question.
Then the boy dawdled about near his mother.

They shared the same anxiety.