Doomsday by Warwick Deeping

He had to go out again to feed and milk, putting on his muddy boots at the door, and taking a lantern with him, for the night had come down like a mass of wet crêpe. She went out with him to the door and saw him go out. "It is Christmas Eve, Arnold." So it was; he had forgotten. She stood and watched his figure grow dim beside the swinging lantern, the rays of which played upon the smoking drizzle. She glanced upwards, and realized that no stars would shine on this Christmas Eve, and that they could not be expected to shine, and that her one star was her man's lantern. It had disappeared behind the yew hedge, but she could trace its passing by a faint and moving aureole like the glow about the Grail.

There were lamps to be lit, and she lit them, and cleared away the tea things, and washed up. She was in the midst of her crisis. It would not do for her to sit still and drift, for she did not know what manner of man would come back to her out of the darkness. Her bed was waiting to be made, and she lit a candle, and spent a quarter of an hour hunting for sheets, finding them at last in an oak press in Furze's bedroom. She spread them over the backs of two chairs in front of the fire, and while they were airing she explored the larder and considered the problem of his supper.