Now is her opportunity.

The screen is an unwieldy thing, but still as a mouse she carries it, and they are well under weigh when it strikes against the gas-bracket in the passage.

Next moment a reproachful hand arrests her.
She is challenged with being out of bed, she denies it--standing in the passage.

Meekly or stubbornly she returns to bed, and it is no satisfaction to you that you can say, 'Well, well, of all the women!' and so on, or 'Surely you knew that the screen was brought here to protect you,' for she will reply scornfully, 'Who was touching the screen ?' By this time I have wakened (I am through the wall) and join them anxiously: so often has my mother been taken ill in the night that the slightest sound from her room rouses the house.

She is in bed again, looking as if she had never been out of it, but I know her and listen sternly to the tale of her misdoings.