BESSIE COSTRELL

BY

MRS. HUMPHRY WARD

AUTHOR OF

 "ROBERT ELSMERE, " "THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE, " "MARCELLA, " ETC. 

HODDER AND STOUGHTON

LONDON ---- NEW YORK ---- TORONTO

1912

SCENE I

It was an August evening, still and cloudy after a day unusually chillyfor the time of year. Now, about sunset, the temperature was warmerthan it had been in the morning, and the departing sun was forcing itsway through the clouds, breaking up their level masses into delicatelattice-work of golds and greys. The last radiant light was on thewheat-fields under the hill, and on the long chalk hill itself. Against that glowing background lay the village, already engulfed bythe advancing shadow. All the nearer trees, which the daylight hadmingled in one green monotony, stood out sharp and distinct, each inits own plane, against the hill. Each natural object seemed to gain anew accent, a more individual beauty, from the vanishing and yetlingering sunlight. 

An elderly labourer was walking along the road which led to thevillage. To his right lay the allotment gardens just beginning to bealive with figures, and the voices of men and children. Beyond them, far ahead, rose the square tower of the church; to his left was thehill, and straight in front of him the village, with its veils of smokelightly brushed over the trees, and its lines of cottages climbing thechalk steeps behind it. His eye as he walked took in a number of suchfacts as life had trained it to notice. Once he stopped to bend over afence, to pluck a stalk or two of oats. He examined them carefully;then he threw back his head and sniffed the air, looking all round thesky meanwhile. Yes, the season had been late and harsh, but the fineweather was coming at last. Two or three days' warmth now would ripeneven the oats, let alone the wheat. 

Well, he was glad. He wanted the harvest over. It would, perhaps, behis last harvest at Clinton Magna, where he had worked, man and boy, for fifty-six years come Michaelmas. His last harvest! A curiouspleasure stirred the man's veins as he thought of it, a pleasure inexpected change, which seemed to bring back the pulse of youth, toloosen a little the yoke at those iron years that had perforce aged andbent him; though, for sixty-two, he was still hale and strong. 

Things had all come together. Here was "Muster" Hill, the farmer hehad worked for these seventeen years, dying of a sudden, with acarbuncle on the neck, and the farm to be given up at Michaelmas. He--John Bolderfield--had been working on for the widow; but, in hisopinion, she was "nobbut a caselty sort of body, " and the sooner sheand her children were taken off to Barnet, where they were to live withher mother, the less she'd cost them as had the looking after her. Asfor the crops, they wouldn't pay the debts; not they. And there was noone after the farm--"nary one"--and didn't seem like to be. That wouldmake another farm on Muster Forrest's hands. Well, and a good job. Landlords must be "took down"; and there was plenty of work going onthe railway just now for those that were turned off. 

He was too old for the railway, though, and he might have found it hardto get fresh work if he had been staying at Clinton. But he was notstaying. Poor Eliza wouldn't last more than a few days; a week or twoat most, and he was not going to keep on the cottage after he'd buriedher. 

Aye, poor Eliza! She was his sister-in-law, the widow of his secondbrother. He had been his brother's lodger during the greater part ofhis working life, and since Tom's death he had stayed on with Eliza. She and he suited each other, and the "worritin' childer" had all goneaway years since and left them in peace. He didn't believe Eliza knewwhere any of them were, except Mary, "married over to Luton"--and Jimand Jim's Louisa. And a good riddance too. There was not one of themknew how to keep a shilling when they'd got one. Still, it was a bitlonesome for Eliza now, with no one but Jim's Louisa to look after her. 

He grew rather downhearted as he trudged along, thinking. She and hehad stuck together "a many year. " There would be nobody left for himto go along with when she was gone. There was his niece BessieCostrell and her husband, and there was his silly old cousin WidowWaller. He dared say they'd both of them want him to live with them. At the thought a grin crossed his ruddy face. They both knew about_it_--that was what it was. And he wouldn't live with either of them, not he. Not yet a bit, anyway. All the same, he had a fondness forBessie and her husband. Bessie was always very civil to _him_--hechuckled again--and if anything had to be done with it, while he wasfive miles off at Frampton on a job of work that had been offered him, he didn't know but he'd as soon trust Isaac Costrell and Bessie asanybody else. You might call Isaac rather a fool, what with hisreligion, and "extemp'ry prayin', an' that, " but all the sameBolderfield thought of him with a kind of uneasy awe. If ever therewas a man secure of the next world it was Isaac Costrell. His temper, perhaps, was "nassty, " which might pull him down a little when the lastaccount came to be made up; and it could not be said that his elderchildren had come to much, for all his piety. But, on the whole, Bolderfield only wished he stood as well with the Powers talked aboutin chapel every Sunday as Isaac did. 

As for Bessie, she had been a wasteful woman all her life, with never abit of money put by, and never a good dress to her back. But, "Lor'bless yer, there was a many worse folk nor Bessie. " She wasn't one ofyour sour people--she could make you laugh; she had a merry heart. Many a pleasant evening had he passed chatting with her and Isaac; andwhenever they cooked anything good there was always a bite for him. Yes, Bessie had been a good niece to him; and if he trusted any one hedared say he'd trust them. 

"Well, how's Eliza, Muster Bolderfield?" said a woman who passed him inthe village street. 

He replied, and then went on his way, sobered again, dreading to findhimself at the cottage once more, and in the stuffy upper room with thebed and the dying woman. Yet he was not really sad, not here at least, out in the air and the sun. There was always a thought in his mind, afact in his consciousness, which stood between him and sadness. It hadso stood for a long, long time. He walked through the villageto-night, in spite of Eliza and his sixty years, with a free bearingand a confident glance to right and left. He knew, and the villageknew, that he was not as other men. 

He passed the village green with its pond, and began to climb a laneleading to the hill. Half-way up stood two cottages sideways. Phloxesand marigolds grew untidily about their doorways, and straggly roses, starved a little by the chalk soil, looked in at their latticedwindows. They were, however, comparatively modern and comfortable, with two bedrooms above and two living-rooms below, far superior to theolder and more picturesque cottages in the main street. 

John went in softly, put down his straw dinner-bag, and took off hisheavy boots. Then he opened a door in the wall of the kitchen, andgently climbed the stairs. 

A girl was sitting by the bed. When she saw his whitish head and redface emerge against the darkness of the stair-hole, she put up herfinger for silence. 

John crept in and came to look at the patient. His eyes grew round andstaring, his colour changed. 

"Is she a-goin'?" he said, with evident excitement. 

Jim's Louisa shook her head. She was rather a stupid girl, heavy andround-faced, but she had nursed her grandmother well. 

"No; she's asleep. Muster Drew's been here, and she dropped off whilehe was a-talkin' to her. "

Mr. Drew was the Congregational minister. 

"Did she send for him?"

"Yes; she said she felt her feet a-gettin' cold, and I must run. But Idon't believe she's no worse. "

John stood looking down, ruefully. Suddenly the figure in the bedturned. 

"John, " said a comparatively strong voice which made Bolderfieldstart--"John, Muster Drew says you'd oughter put it in the bank. You'll be a fool if yer don't, 'ee says. "

The old woman's pinched face emerged from the sheets, looking up athim. Bluish patches showed here and there on the drawn white skin;there was a great change since the morning, but the eyes were stillalive. 

John was silent a moment, one corner of his mouth twitching, as thoughwhat she had said struck him in a humorous light. 

"Well, I don't know as I mind much what 'ee says, 'Liza. "

"Sit down. "

She made a movement with her emaciated hand. John sat down on thechair Louisa gave up to him, and bent down over the bed. 

"If yer woan't do--what Muster Drew says, John--whatever _wull_ yer dowith it?"

She spoke slowly, but clearly. John scratched his head. Hiscomplexion had evidently been very fair. It was still fresh and pink, and the full cheek hung a little over the jaw. The mouth was shrewd, but its expression was oddly contradicted by the eyes, which had on thewhole a childish, weak look. 

"I think yer must leave it to me, 'Liza, " he said at last. "I'll doall for the best. "

"No--yer'll not, John, " said the dying voice. "You'd a done a manystupid things--if I 'adn't stopped yer. An' I'm a-goin'. You'll neverleave it wi' Bessie?"

"An' who 'ud yer 'ave me leave it with? Ain't Bessie my own sister'schild?"

An emaciated hand stole out of the bed-clothes and fastened feebly onhis arm. 

"If yer do, John, yer'll repent it. Yer never were a good one atjudgin' folk. Yer doan't consider nothin'--an' I'm a-goin'. Leave itwith Saunders, John. "

There was a pause. Then John said with an obstinate look--

"Saunders 'as never been a friend o' mine since 'ee did me out o' thatbit o' business with Missus Moulsey. An' I don't mean to go makin'friends with him again. "

Eliza withdrew her hand with a long sigh, and her eyelids closed. Afit of coughing shook her; she had to be lifted in bed, and it left hergasping and deathly. John was sorely troubled, and not only forhimself. When she was more at ease again, he stooped to her and puthis mouth to her ear. 

"'Liza, don't yer think no more about it. Did Mr. Drew read to yer?Are yer comfortable in yer mind?"

She made a sign of assent, which showed, however, no great interest inthe subject. There was silence for a long time. Louisa was gettingsupper downstairs. John, oppressed by the heat of the room and tiredby his day's work, had almost fallen asleep in his chair, when the oldwoman spoke again. 

"John--what 'ud you think o' Mary Anne Waller?"

The whisper was still human and eager. 

John roused himself, and could not help an astonished laugh. 

"Why, whatever put Mary Anne into your head, 'Liza? Yer never thoughtanythink o' Mary Anne--no more than me. "

Eliza's eyes wandered round the room. 

"P'r'aps----" she said, then stopped, and could say no more. Sheseemed to become unconscious, and John went to call for Louisa. 

In the middle of the night John woke with a start, and sat up tolisten. Not a sound--but they would have called him if the end hadcome. He could not rest, however, and presently he huddled on someclothes and went to listen at Eliza's door. It was ajar, and, hearingnothing, he pushed it open. 

Poor Eliza lay in her agony, unconscious, and breathing heavily. Beside her sat the widow, Mary Anne Waller, and Louisa, motionless too, their heads bent. There was an end of candle in a basin behind thebed, which threw circles of wavering light over the coarse whitewash ofthe roof and on the cards and faded photographs above the tinymantelpiece. 

John crept up to the bed. The two women made a slight movement to lethim stand between them. 

"Can't yer give her no brandy?" he asked, whispering. 

Mary Anne Waller shook her head. 

"Dr. Murch said we wer'n't to trouble her. She'll go when the lightcomes--most like. "

She was a little shrivelled woman with a singularly delicate mouth, that quivered as she spoke. John and Eliza Bolderfield had neverthought much of her, though she was John's cousin. She was a widow, and greatly "put upon" both by her children and her neighbours. Herchildren were grown up, and settled--more or less--in the world, butthey still lived on her freely whenever it suited them; and in thevillage generally she was reckoned but a poor creature. 

However, when Eliza--originally a hard, strong woman--took to her bedwith incurable disease, Mary Anne Waller came in to help, and wasaccepted. She did everything humbly; she even let Louisa order herabout. But before the end, Eliza had come to be restless when she wasnot there. 

Now, however, Eliza knew no more, and the little widow sat gazing ather with the tears on her cheeks. John, too, felt his eyes wet. 

But after half an hour, when there was still no change, he was turningaway to go back to bed, when the widow touched his arm. 

"Won't yer give her a kiss, John?" she said timidly. "She wor a goodsister to you. "

John, with a tremor, stooped, and clumsily did as he was told--thefirst time in his life he had ever done so for Mary Anne. Then, stepping as noiselessly as he could on his bare feet, he hurried away. A man shares nothing of that yearning attraction which draws women to adeath-bed as such. Instead, John felt a sudden sickness at his heart. He was thankful to find himself in his own room again, and thought withdread of having to go back--for the end. In spite of his stillvigorous and stalwart body, he was often plagued with nervous fears andfancies. And it was years now since he had seen death--he had, indeed, carefully avoided seeing it. 

Gradually, however, as he sat on the edge of his bed in the summerdark, the new impression died away, and something habitual took itsplace--that shielding, solacing thought, which was in truth all theworld to him, and was going to make up to him for Eliza's death, forgetting old, and the lonesomeness of a man without chick or child. Hewould have felt unutterably forlorn and miserable, he would have shrunktrembling from the shapes of death and pain that seemed to fill thedarkness, but for this fact, this defence, this treasure, that set himapart from his fellows and gave him this proud sense of superiority, ofa good time coming in spite of all. Instinctively, as he sat on thebed, he pushed his bare foot backwards till his heel touched a woodenobject that stood underneath. The contact cheered him at once. Heceased to think about Eliza, his head was once more full of whirlingplans and schemes. 

The wooden object was a box that held his money, the savings of alabourer's lifetime. Seventy-one pounds! It seemed to him an ocean ofgold, never to be exhausted. The long toil of saving it was almostdone. After the Frampton job, he would begin enjoying it, cautiouslyat first, taking a bit of work now and again, and then a bit of holiday. 

All the savour of life was connected for him with that box. His mindran over the constant excitements of the many small loans he had madefrom it to his relations and friends. A shilling in the poundinterest--he had never taken less and he had never asked more. He hadonly lent to people he knew well, people in the village whom he couldlook after, and seldom for a term longer than three months, for to beparted from his money at all gave him physical pain. He had oncesuffered great anxiety over a loan to his eldest brother of thirtypounds. But in the end James had paid it all back. He could stillfeel tingling through him the passionate joy with which he had countedout the recovered sovereigns, with the extra three half-sovereigns ofinterest. 

Muster Drew indeed! John fell into an angry inward argument againsthis suggestion of the savings bank. It was an argument he had oftenrehearsed, often declaimed, and at bottom it all came to this--withoutthat box under his bed, his life would have sunk to dulness anddecrepitude; he would have been merely a pitiful and lonely old man. He had neither wife nor children, all for the hoard's sake; but whilethe hoard was there, to be handled any hour, he regretted nothing. Besides, there was the peasant's rooted distrust of offices, and papertransactions, of any routine that checks his free will and frightenshis inexperience. He was still eagerly thinking when the light beganto flood into his room, and before he could compose himself to sleepthe women called him. 

But he shed no more tears. He saw Eliza die, his companion of fortyyears, and hardly felt it. What troubled him all through the lastscene was the thought that now he should never know why she was so setagainst "Bessie's 'avin' it. "

SCENE II

It was, indeed, the general opinion in Clinton Magna that JohnBolderfield--or "Borrofull, " as the village pronounced it, took hissister-in-law's death too lightly. The women especially pronounced hima hard heart. Here was "poor Eliza" gone, Eliza who had kept himdecent and comfortable for forty years, ever since he was a lad, and hecould go about whistling, and--to talk to him--as gay as a lark! YetJohn contributed handsomely to the burial expenses--Eliza havingalready, through her burial club, provided herself with a more thanregulation interment; and he gave Jim's Louisa her mourning. Nevertheless, these things did not avail. It was felt instinctivelythat he was not beaten down as he ought to have been, and Mrs. Saunders, the smith's wife, was applauded when she said to herneighbours that "you couldn't expeck a man with John Bolderfield'smoney to have as many feelin's as other people. " Whence it would seemthat the capitalist is no more truly popular in small societies than inlarge. 

John, however, did not trouble himself about these things. He was hardat work harvesting for Muster Hill's widow, and puzzling his head dayand night as to what to do with his box. 

When the last field had been carried and the harvest supper was over, he came home late, and wearied out. His working life at Clinton Magnawas done; and the family he had worked for so long was broken up indistress and poverty. Yet he felt only a secret exultation. Such toiland effort behind--such a dreamland in front!

Next day he set to work to wind up his affairs. The furniture of thecottage was left to Eliza's son Jim, and the daughter had arranged forthe carting of it to the house twelve miles off where her parentslived. She was to go with it on the morrow, and John would give up thecottage and walk over to Frampton, where he had already secured alodging. 

Only twenty-four hours!--and he had not yet decided. Which was it tobe--Saunders, after all--or the savings bank--or Bessie?

He was cording up his various possessions--a medley lot--in differentparcels and bundles when Bessie Costrell knocked at the door. She hadalready offered to stow away anything he might like to leave with her. 

"Well, I thought you'd be busy, " she said as she walked in, "an' I cameup to lend a hand. Is them the things you're goin' to leave me to takecare on?"

John nodded. 

"Field's cart, as takes Louisa's things to-morrer, is a-goin' todeliver these at your place first. They're more nor I thought theywould be. But you can put 'em anywheres. "

"Oh, I'll see to them. "

She sat down and watched him tie the knots of the last parcel. 

"There's some people as is real ill-natured, " she said presently, in anangry voice. 

"Aye?" said John, looking up sharply. "What are they sayin' now?"

"It's Muster Saunders. 'Ee's allus sayin' nassty things about otherfolks. And there'd be plenty of fault to be found with 'im, if onybodywas to try. An' Sally Saunders eggs him on dreadful. "

Saunders was the village smith, a tall, brawny man, of great size andcorresponding wisdom, who had been the village arbiter and generalcouncillor for a generation. There was not a will made in ClintonMagna that he did not advise upon; not a bit of contentious businessthat he had not a share in; not a family history that he did not know. His probity was undisputed; his ability was regarded with awe; but ashe had a sharp tongue and was no respecter of persons, there was ofcourse an opposition. 

John took a seat on the wooden box he had just been cording, and moppedhis brow. His full cheeks were crimson, partly with exertion, partlywith sudden annoyance. 

"What's 'ee been sayin' now? Though it doan't matter a brass farthin'to me what 'ee says. "

"He says you 'aven't got no proper feelin's about poor Eliza, an' you'dought to have done a great deal more for Louisa. But 'ee says youallus were a mean one with your money--an' you knew that _'ee_ knewit--for 'ee'd stopped you takin' an unfair advantage more nor once. An' 'ee didn't believe as your money would come to any good; for nowEliza was gone you wouldn't know how to take care on it. "

John's eyes flamed. 

"Oh! 'ee says that, do 'ee? Well, Saunders wor allus a beast--an' abeast 'ee'll be. "

He sat with his chin on his large dirty hands, ruminating furiously. 

It was quite true that Saunders had thwarted him more than once. Therewas old Mrs. Moulsey at the shop, when she wanted to buy those cottagesin Potter's Row--and there was Sam Field the higgler--both of themwould have borrowed from him if Saunders hadn't cooled them off. Saunders said it was a Jew's interest he was asking--because there wassecurity--but he wasn't going to accept a farthing less than hisshilling a pound for three months--not he! So they might take it orleave it. And Mrs. Moulsey got hers from the Building Society, and SamField made shift to go without. And John Bolderfield was three poundspoorer that quarter than he need have been--all along of Saunders. Andnow Saunders was talking "agen him" like this--blast him!

"Oh, an' then he went on, " pursued Bessie with gusto, "about your bein'too ignorant to put it in the post-office. 'Ee said you'd thinkEdwards would go an' spend it" (Edwards was the post-master), "an' thenhe laughed fit to split 'imself. Yer couldn't see more nor the lengthof your own nose, he said--it was edication _you_ wanted. As for 'im, 'ee said, 'ee'd have kep' it for you if you'd asked him, but you'd beenlike a bear with a sore 'ead, 'ee said, ever since Mrs. Moulsey'saffair--so 'ee didn't suppose you would. "

"Well, 'ee's about right there, " said John, grimly; "ee's talkin' sensefor onst when 'ee says that. I'd dig a hole in the hill and bury itsooner nor I'd trust it to 'im--I would, by----" he swore vigorously. "A thieving set of magpies is all them Saunders--cadgin' 'ere andcadgin' there. "

He spoke with fierce contempt, the tacit hatred of years leaping tosight. Bessie's bright brown eyes looked at him with sympathy. 

"It was just his nassty spite, " she said. "He knew _'ee_ could neverha' done it--not what you've done--out o' your wages. Not unless 'eegot Sally to tie 'im to the dresser with ropes so as 'ee couldn't goa-near the Spotted Deer no more!"

She laughed like a merry child at her own witticism, and John relishedit too, though he was not in a laughing mood. 

"Why, " continued Bessie with enthusiasm, "it was Muster Drew as said tome the other afternoon, as we was walkin' 'ome from the churchyard, says 'ee, 'Mrs. Costrell, I call it splendid what John's done--I _do_, ''ee says. 'A labourer on fifteen shillin's a week--why, it's anexample to the county, ' 'ee says. ''Ee ought to be showed. '"

John's face relaxed. The temper and obstinacy in the eyes began toyield to the weak complacency which was their more normal expression. 

There was silence for a minute or two. Bessie sat with her hands onher lap and her face turned towards the open door. Beyond thecherry-red phloxes outside it the ground fell rapidly to the village, rising again beyond the houses to a great stubble field, newly shorn. Gleaners were already in the field, their bent figures casting sharpshadows on the golden upland, and the field itself stretched upwards toa great wood that lay folded round the top of a spreading hill. To theleft, beyond the hill, a wide plain travelled into the sunset, itslevel spaces cut by the scrawled elms and hedgerows of the nearerlandscape. The beauty of it all--the beauty of an English midland--wasof a modest and measured sort, depending chiefly on bounties of sun andair, on the delicacies of gentle curves and the pleasant interminglingof wood and cornfield, of light spaces with dark, of solid earth andluminous sky. 

Such as it was, however, neither Bessie nor John spared it a moment'sattention. Bessie was thinking a hundred busy thoughts. John, on theother hand, had begun to consider her with an excited scrutiny. Shewas a handsome woman, as she sat in the doorway with her fine brownhead turned to the light. But John naturally was not thinking of that. He was in the throes of decision. 

"Look 'ere, Bessie, " he said suddenly; "what 'ud you say if I wor toask Isaac an' you to take care on it?"

Bessie started slightly. Then she looked frankly round at him. Shehad very keen, lively eyes, and a bright red-brown colour on thincheeks. The village applied to her the epithet which John's thoughtshad applied to Muster Hill's widow. They said she was "caselty, " whichmeans flighty, haphazard, excitable; but she was popular, nevertheless, and had many friends. 

It was, of course, her own settled opinion that her uncle ought toleave that box with her and Isaac; and it had wounded her vanity, andher affection besides, that John had never yet made any such proposal, though she knew--as, indeed, the village knew--that he was perplexed asto what to do with his hoard. But she had never dared to suggest thathe should leave it with her, out of fear of Eliza Bolderfield. Bessiewas well aware that Eliza thought ill of her, and would dissuade Johnfrom any such arrangement if she could. And so formidable was Eliza--awoman of the hardest and sourest virtue--when she chose, that Bessiewas afraid of her, even on her deathbed, though generally ready enoughto quarrel with other people. Nevertheless, Bessie had always feltthat it would be a crying shame and slight if she and Isaac did nothave the guardianship of the money. She thirsted, perhaps, to make animpression upon public opinion in the village, which, as sheinstinctively realised, held her cheaply. And then, of course, therewas the secret thought of John's death, and what might come of it. John had always loudly proclaimed that he meant to spend his money, andnot leave it behind him. But the instinct of saving, once formed, isstrong. John, too, might die sooner than he thought--and she and Isaachad children. 

She had come up, indeed, that afternoon, haunted by a passionate desireto get the money into her hands; yet the mere sordidness of"expectations" counted for less in the matter than one would suppose. Vanity, a vague wish to ingratiate herself with her uncle, to avoid aslight--these were, on the whole, her strongest motives. At any rate, when he had once asked her the momentous question, she knew well whatto say to him. 

"Well, if you arst me, " she said hastily, "of course _we_ think as it'sonly nateral you should leave it with Isaac an' me, as is your own kithand kin. But we wasn't goin' to say nothin'; we didn't want to bepushin' of ourselves forward. "

John rose to his feet. He was in his shirt-sleeves, which were rolledup. He pulled them down, put on his coat, an air of crisis on his fatface. 

"Where 'ud you put it?" he said. 

"Yer know that cupboard by the top of the stairs? It 'ud stand thereeasy. And the cupboard's got a good lock to it; but we'd 'ave it seento, to make sure. "

She looked up at him eagerly. She longed to feel herself trusted andimportant. Her self-love was too often mortified in these respects. 

John fumbled round his neck for the bit of black cord on which he kepttwo keys--the key of his room while he was away and the key of the boxitself. 

"Well, let's get done with it, " he said. "I'm off to-morrer mornin', six o'clock. You go and get Isaac to come down. "

"I'll run, " said Bessie, catching up her shawl and throwing it over herhead. "He wor just finishin' his tea. "

And she whirled out of the cottage, running up the steep road behind itas fast as she could. John was vaguely displeased by her excitement;but the die was cast. He went to make his arrangements. 

Bessie ran till she was out of breath. When she reached her own house, a cottage in a side lane above the Bolderfields' cottage andoverlooking it from the back, she found her husband sitting with hispipe at the open door and reading his newspaper. Three out of her ownfour children were playing in the lane, otherwise there was no oneabout. 

Isaac greeted her with a nod and slight lightening of the eyes, which, however, hardly disturbed the habitual sombreness of the face. He wasa dark, finely featured man, with grizzled hair, carrying himself withan air of sleepy melancholy. He was much older than his wife, and wasa prominent leader in the little Independent chapel of the village. His melancholy could give way on occasion to fits of violent temper. For instance, he had been almost beside himself when Bessie, who hadleanings to the Establishment, as providing a far more crowded andentertaining place of resort on Sundays than her husband's chapel, hadrashly proposed to have the youngest baby christened in church. OtherIndependents did it freely--why not she? But Isaac had been nearly madwith wrath, and Bessie had fled upstairs from him, with her baby, andbolted the bedroom door in bodily terror. Otherwise, he was a mostdocile husband--in the neighbours' opinion, docile to absurdity. Hecomplained of nothing, and took notice of little. Bessie's untidy waysleft him indifferent; his main interest was in a kind of religiousdreaming, and in an Independent paper to which he occasionally wrote aletter. He was a gardener at a small house on the hill, and had rathermore education than most of his fellows in the village. For the rest, he was fond of his children, and, in his heart of hearts, exceedinglyproud of his wife, her liveliness and her good looks. She had been aremarkably pretty girl when he married her, some eight years after hisfirst wife's death, and there was a great difference of age betweenthem. His two elder children by his first marriage had long since lefthome. The girl was in service. It troubled him to think of the boy, who had fallen into bad ways early. Bessie's children were all small, and she herself still young, though over thirty. 

When Bessie came up to him, she looked round to see that no one couldhear. Then she stooped and told him her errand in a panting whisper. He must go down and fetch the box at once. She had promised JohnBorrofull that they would stand by him. They were his own flesh andblood--and the cupboard had a capital lock--and there wasn't no fear ofit at all. 

Isaac listened to her at first with amazement, then sulkily. She hadtalked to him often certainly about John's money, but it had madelittle impression on his dreamer's sense. And now her demand struckhim disagreeably. 

He didn't want the worrit of other people's money, he said. Let themas owned it keep it; filthy lucre was a snare to all as had to do withit; and it would only bring a mischief to have it in the house. 

After a few more of these objections, Bessie lost her temper. Shebroke into a torrent of angry arguments and reproaches, mainly turning, it seemed, upon a recent visit to the house of Isaac's eldest son. Thedrunken ne'er-do-weel had given Bessie much to put up with. Ohyes!--_she_ was to be plagued out of her life by Isaac's belongings, and he wouldn't do a pin's worth for her. Just let him see next time, that was all. 

Isaac smoked vigorously through it all. But she was hammering on asore point. 

"Oh, it's just like yer!" Bessie flung at him at last in desperation. "You're allus the same--a mean-spirited feller, stannin' in yourchildren's way! 'Ow do _you_ know who old John's going to leave hismoney to? 'Ow do _you_ know as he wouldn't leave it to _them_ poorinnercents"--she waved her hand tragically towards the children playingin the road--"if we was just a bit nice and friendly with him now 'ee'sgettin' old? But you don't care, not you!--one 'ud think yer were madeo' money--an' that little un there not got the right use of his legs!"

She pointed, half crying, to the second boy, who had already shownsigns of hip disease. 

Isaac still smoked, but he was troubled in his mind. A vaguepresentiment held him, but the pressure brought to bear upon him wasstrong. 

"I tell yer the lock isn't a good 'un!" he said, suddenly removing hispipe. 

Bessie stopped instantly in the middle of another tirade. She wasleaning against the door, arms akimbo, eyes alternately wet and flaming. 

"Then, if it isn't, " she said, with a triumphant change of tone, "I'llsoon get Flack to see to it--it's nobbut a step. I'll run up aftersupper. "

Flack was the village carpenter. 

"An' there's mother's old box as takes up the cupboard, " continuedIsaac gruffly. 

Bessie burst out laughing. 

"Oh! yer old silly, " she said. "As if they couldn't stand one top o'the t'other. Now, do just go, Isaac--there's a lovey! 'Ee's waitin'for yer. Whatever did make yer so contrairy? Of course I didn't meannothin' I said--an' I don't mind Timothy, nor nothin'. "

Still he did not move. 

"Then I s'pose yer want everybody in the village to know?" he said withsarcasm. 

Bessie was taken aback. 

"No--I--don't--" she said undecidedly--"I don't know what yer mean. "

"You go back and tell John as I'll come when it's dark, an', if he'snot a stupid, he won't want me to come afore. "

Bessie understood and acquiesced. She ran back with her message toJohn. 

At half-past eight, when it had grown almost dark, Isaac descended thehill. John opened the door to his knock. 

"Good evenin', Isaac. Yer'll take it, will yer?"

"If you can't do nothin' better with it, " said Isaac, unwillingly. "But in gineral I'm not partial on keeping other folk's money. "

John liked him all the better for his reluctance. 

"It'll give yer no trouble, " he said. "You lock it up, an' it'll beall safe. Now, will yer lend a hand?"

Isaac stepped to the door, looked up the lane, and saw that all wasquiet. Then he came back, and the two men raised the box. 

As they crossed the threshold, however, the door of the nextcottage--which belonged to Watson, the policeman--opened suddenly. John, in his excitement, was so startled that he almost dropped his endof the box. 

"Why, Bolderfield, " said Watson's cheery voice, "what have you gotthere? Do you want a hand?"

"No, I don't--thank yer kindly, " said John in agitation. "An', if_you_ please, Muster Watson, don't yer say nothin' to nobody. "

The burly policeman looked from John to Isaac, then at the box. John'shoard was notorious, and the officer of the law understood. 

"Lor' bless yer, " he said, with a laugh, "I'm safe. Well, good evenin'to yer, if I can't be of any assistance. "

And he went off on his beat. 

The two men carried the box up the hill. It was in itself a heavy, old-fashioned affair, strengthened and bottomed with iron. Isaacwondered whether the weight of it were due more to the box or to themoney. But he said nothing. He had no idea how much John might havesaved, and would not have asked him the direct question for the world. John's own way of talking about his wealth was curiously contradictory. His "money" was rarely out of his thoughts or speech, but no one hadever been privileged for many years now to see the inside of his box, except Eliza once; and no one but himself knew the exact amount of thehoard. It delighted him that the village gossips should double ortreble it. Their estimates only gave him the more ground for vagueboasting, and he would not have said a word to put them right. 

When they reached the Costrells' cottage, John's first care was toexamine the cupboard. He saw that the large wooden chest filled withodds and ends of rubbish which already stood there was placed on thetop of his own box. Then he tried the lock, and pronounced itadequate; he didn't want to have Flack meddling round. Now, at themoment of parting with his treasure, he was seized with a sudden feverof secrecy. Bessie meanwhile hovered about the two men, full ofexcitement and loquacity. And the children, shut into the kitchen, wondered what could be the matter. 

When all was done, Isaac locked the cupboard, and solemnly presentedthe key to John, who added it to the other round his neck. Then Bessieunlocked the kitchen, and sent the children flying, to help her withthe supper. She was in her most bustling and vivacious mood, and shehad never cooked the bloaters better or provided a more ample jug ofbeer. But John was silent and depressed. 

He took leave at last with many sighs and lingerings. But he had notbeen gone half an hour, and Bessie and Isaac were just going to bed, when there was a knock at the door, and he reappeared. 

"Let me lie down there, " he said, pointing to a broken-down old sofathat ran under the window. "I'm lonesome somehow, an' I've toldLouisa. " His white hair and whiskers stood out wildly round his redface. He looked old and ill, and the sympathetic Bessie was sorry forhim. 

She made him a bed on the sofa, and he lay there all night, restless, and sighing heavily. He missed Eliza more than he had done yet, andwas oppressed with a vague sense of unhappiness. Once, in the middleof the night when all was still, he stole upstairs in his stockingedfeet and gently tried the cupboard door. It was quite safe, and hewent down contented. 

An hour or two later he was off, trudging to Frampton through theAugust dawn, with his bundle on his back. 

SCENE III

Some five months passed away. 

One January night the Independent minister of Clinton Magna was passingdown the village street. Clinton lay robed in light snow, and "sparklingto the moon. " The frozen pond beside the green, though it was nearlyeight o'clock, was still alive with children, sliding and shouting. Allaround the gabled roofs stood laden and spotless. The woods behind thevillage, and those running along the top of the snowy hill, were meshedin a silvery mist which died into the moonlit blue, while in the fieldsthe sharpness of the shadows thrown by the scattered trees made a marvelof black and white. 

The minister, in spite of a fighting creed, possessed a measure ofgentler susceptibilities, and the beauty of this basin in the chalkhills, this winter triumphant, these lights of home and fellowship in thecottage windows disputing the forlornness of the snow, crept into hissoul. His mind travelled from the physical purity and hardness beforehim to the purity and hardness of the inner life--the purity that Christblessed, the "hardness" that the Christian endures. And such thoughtsbrought him pleasure as he walked--the mystic's pleasure. 

Suddenly he saw a woman cross the snowy green in front of him. She hadcome from the road leading to the hill, and her pace was hurried. Hershawl was muffled round her head, but he recognised her, and his moodfell. She was the wife of Isaac Costrell, and she was hurrying to theSpotted Deer, a public-house which lay just beyond the village, on theroad to the mill. Already several times that week had he seen her goingin or coming out. Talk had begun to reach him, and he said to himselfto-night as he saw her--that Isaac Costrell's wife was going to ruin. 

The thought oppressed him, pricked his pastoral conscience. Isaac washis right-hand man: dull to all the rest of the world, but not dull tothe minister. With Mr. Drew sometimes he would break into talk ofreligion, and the man's dark eyes would lose their film. His bigtroubled self spoke with that accent of truth which lifts common talk andhalting texts to poetry. The minister, himself more of a pessimist thanhis sermons showed, felt a deep regard for him. Could nothing be done tosave Isaac's wife and Isaac? Not so long ago Bessie Costrell had been adecent woman, though a flighty and excitable one. Now some cause, unknown to the minister, had upset a wavering balance, and was undoing alife. 

As he passed the public-house a man came out, and through the open doorMr. Drew caught a momentary glimpse of the bar and the drinkers. Bessie's handsome, reckless head stood out an instant in the bright light. 

Then Drew saw that the man who had emerged was Watson the policeman. They greeted each other cordially and walked on together. Watson alsowas a member of the minister's flock. Mr. Drew felt suddenly moved tounburden himself. 

"That was Costrell's wife, Watson, wasn't it, poor thing?"

"Aye, it wor Mrs. Costrell, " said Watson in the tone of concern naturalto the respectable husband and father. 

The minister sighed. "It's terrible the way she's gone downhill the lastthree months. I never pass almost but I see her going in there or comingout. "

"No, " said Watson, slowly, "no, it's bad. What I'd like to know, " headded reflectively, "is where she gets the money from. "

"Oh, she had a legacy, hadn't she, in August? It seems to have been acurse. She has been a changed woman ever since. "

"Yes, she had a legacy, " said Watson dubiously; "but I don't believe itwas much. She talked big, of course, and made a lot o' fuss--she's thatkind o' woman--just as she did about old John's money. "

"Old John's money?--Ah! did any one ever know what became of that?"

"Well, there's many people thinks as Isaac has got it hid in the housesomewhere, and there's others thinks he's put it in Bedford bank. Edwards told me private he didn't know nothing about it at thepost-office, an' Bessie told my wife as John had given Isaac the keepin'of it till he come back again; but he'd knock her about, she said, if shelet on what he'd done with it. That's the story she's allus had, andboastin', of course, dreadful, about John's trustin' them, and Isaacdoin' all his business for him. "

The minister reflected. --"And you say the legacy wasn't much?"

"Well, sir, I know some people over at Bedford where her aunt lived asleft it her, and they were sure it wasn't a great deal; but you neverknow. "

"And Isaac never said?"

"Bless yer, no, sir! He was never a great one for talking, wasn't Isaac;but you'd think now as he'd never learnt how. He'll set there in theClub of a night and never open his mouth to nobody. "

"Perhaps he's fretting about his wife, Watson?"

"Well, I don't believe as he knows much about her goin's-on--not all, leastways. I've seen her wait till he was at his work or gone to theClub, and then run down the hill, --tearin'--with her hair flyin'--you'dthink she'd gone silly. Oh, it's a bad business, " said Watson, strongly, "an' uncommon bad business--all them young children too. "

"I never saw her drunk, Watson. "

"No--yer wouldn't. Nor I neither. But she'll treat half the parish ifshe gets the chance. I know many young fellers as go to the Spotted Deerjust because they know she'll treat 'em, She's a-doin' of it now--there'slots of 'em. And allus changin' such a queer lot of money too--oddhalf-crowns--years and years old--King George the Third, sir. No--it'sstrange--very strange. "

The two walked on into the darkness, still talking. 

Meanwhile, inside the Spotted Deer Bessie Costrell was treating herhangers-on. She had drunk one glass of gin and water--it had made abeauty of her in the judgment of the tap-room, such a kindling had itgiven to her brown eyes and such a redness to her cheek. Bessie, intruth, had reached her moment of physical prime. The marvel was thatthere were no lovers in addition to the drinking and the extravagance. But the worst of the village scandal-mongers knew of none. Since thisnew phase of character in her had developed, she would drink and makemerry with any young fellow in the place, but it went no farther. Shewas _bonne camarade_ with all the world--no more. Perhaps at bottom somecoolness of temperament protected her; nobody, at any rate, suspectedthat it had anything to do with Isaac, or that she cared a ha'porth forso lugubrious and hypocritical a husband. 

She had showered drinks on all her friends, and had, moreover, chatteredand screamed herself hoarse, when the church-clock outside slowly struckeight. She started, changed countenance, and got up to pay at once. 

"Why, there's another o' them half-crowns o' yourn, Bessie, " said aconsumptive-looking girl in a bedraggled hat and feathers, as Mrs. Costrell handed her coin to the landlord. "Wheriver do yer get 'em?"

"If yer don't ask no questions, I won't tell yer no lies, " said Bessie, with quick impudence. "Where did you get them hat and feathers?"

There was a coarse laugh from the company. The girl in the hat reddenedfuriously, and she and Bessie--both of them in a quarrelsome state--beganto bandy words. 

Meanwhile the landlord was showing the coin to his assistant at the bar. 

"Rum, ain't it? I niver seed one o' them pieces in the village aforethis winter, an' I've been 'ere twenty-two year come April. "

A decent-looking labourer, who did not often visit the Spotted Deer, wasleaning over the bar and caught the words. 

"Well, then, I 'ave, " he said promptly. "I mind well as when I were alad, sixteen year ago, my fayther borrered a bit o' money off JohnBolderfield, to buy a cow with--an' there was 'arf of it in them'arf-crowns. "

Those standing near overheard. Bessie and the girl stopped quarrelling. The landlord, startled, cast a sly eye in Bessie's direction. She cameup to the bar. 

"What's that yer sayin'?" she demanded. The man repeated his remark. 

"Well, I dessay there was, " said Bessie--"I dessay there was. I s'posethere's plenty of 'em. Where do I get 'em?--why, I get 'em at Bedford, of course, when I goes for my money. "

She looked round defiantly. No one said anything; but everybodyinstinctively suspected a lie. The sudden silence was striking. 

"Well, give me my change, will yer?" she said impatiently to thelandlord. "I can't stan' here all night. "

He gave it to her, and she went out showering reckless good-nights, towhich there was little response. The door had no sooner closed upon herthan every one in the tap-room pressed round the bar in a close gatheringof heads and tongues. 

Bessie ran across the green and began to climb the hill at a rapid pace. Her thin woollen shawl blown back by the wind left her arms and bosomexposed. But the effects of the spirit in her veins prevented any senseof cold, though it was a bitter night. 

Once or twice, as she toiled up the hill, she gave a loud sudden sob. 

"Oh, my God!" she said to herself. "My God!"

When she was half-way up she met a neighbour. 

"Have yer seen Isaac?" Bessie asked her, panting. 

"'Ee's at the Club, arn't 'ee?" said the woman. "Well, they won't be upyet. Jim tolt me as Muster Perris"--Muster Perris was the vicar ofClinton Magna--"'ad got a strange gen'leman stayin' with 'im, and wasgoin' to take him into the Club to-night to speak to 'em. 'Ee's abishop, they ses--someun from furrin parts. "

Bessie threw her good-night and climbed on. 

When she reached the cottage the lamp was flaming on the table and thefire was bright. Her lame boy had done all she had told him, and hermiserable heart softened. She hurriedly put out some food for Isaac. Then she lit a candle and went up to look at the children. They were allasleep in the room to the right of the stairs--the two little boys in onebed, the two little girls in the other, each pair huddled togetheragainst the cold, like dormice in a nest. Then she looked, conscience-stricken, at the untidiness of the room. She had bought thechildren a wonderful number of new clothes lately, and, the family beingquite unused to such abundance, there was no place to keep them in. Anew frock was flung down in a corner just as it had been taken off; thekitten was sleeping on Arthur's last new jacket; a smart hat with a bunchof poppies in it was lying about the floor; and under the iron beds couldbe seen a confusion of dusty boots, new and old. The children werenaturally reckless, like their mother, and they had been getting used tonew things. What excited them now, more than the acquisitionsthemselves, was that their mother had strictly forbidden them ever toshow any of their new clothes to their father. If they did, she wouldbeat them well, she said. That they understood; and life was therebyenriched, not only by new clothes but by a number of new emotions andterrors. 

If Bessie noted the state of the room, she made no attempt to mend it. She smoothed back the hair from the boys' foreheads with a violent, shakyhand, and kissed them all, especially Arthur. Then she went out andclosed the door behind her. 

Outside she stood a moment on the tiny landing--listening. Not a sound;but the cottage walls were thin. If any one came along the lane withheavy boots she must hear them. Very like he would be half an hour yet. 

She ran down the stairs and shut the door at the bottom of them, openinginto the kitchen. It had no key, or she would have locked it; and in heragitation, her state of clouded brain, she forgot the outer dooraltogether. Hurrying up again, she sat down on the topmost step, puttingher candle on the boards beside her. The cupboard at the stair-headwhere John had left his money was close to her left hand. 

As she sank into the attitude of rest, her first instinct was to cry andbemoan herself. Deep in her woman's being great floods of tears wererising, and would fain have spent themselves. But she fought them down, rapidly passing instead into a state of cold terror--terror of Isaac'sstep--terror of discovery--of the man in the public-house. 

There was a mousehole in the skirting of the stairs close to thecupboard. She slipped in a finger, felt along an empty space behind, anddrew out a key. 

It turned easily in the cupboard lock, and the two boxes stood revealed, standing apparently just as they stood when John left them. In hot hasteBessie dragged the treasure-box from under the other, starting at everysound in the process, at the thud the old wooden trunk made on the floorof the cupboard as its supporter was withdrawn, at the rustle of her owndress. All the boldness she had shown at the Spotted Deer had vanished. She was now the mere trembling and guilty woman. 

The lock on Bolderfield's box had been forced long before; it opened toher hand. A heap of sovereigns and half-sovereigns lay on one side, divided by a wooden partition from the few silver coins, crowns andhalf-crowns, still lying on the other. She counted both the gold andsilver, losing her reckoning again and again, because of the suddenanguish of listening that would overtake her. 

Thirty-six pounds on the one side, not much more than thirty shillings onthe other. When John left it there had been fifty-one pounds in gold, and rather more than twenty pounds in silver, most of it in half-crowns. Ah! she knew the figures well. 

Did that man who had spoken to the landlord in the public-house suspect?How strange they had all looked! What a silly fool she had been tochange so much of the silver, instead of sticking to the gold! Yet shehad thought the gold would be noticed more. 

When was old John coming back? He had written once from Frampton to saythat he was "laid up bad with the rheumatics, " and was probably goinginto the Frampton Infirmary. That was in November. Since then nothinghad been heard of him. John was no scholar. What if he died withoutcoming back? There would be no trouble then, except--except with Isaac. 

Her mind suddenly filled with wild visions--of herself marched throughthe village by Watson, as she had once seen him march a poacher who hadmauled one of Mr. Forrest's keepers--of the towering walls of Framptonjail--of a visible physical shame which would kill her--drive her mad. If, indeed, Isaac did not kill her before any one but he knew! He hadbeen that cross and glum all these last weeks--never a bit of talkhardly--always snapping at her and the children. Yet he had never said aword to her about the drink--nor about the things she had bought. As tothe "things" and the bills, she believed that he knew nothing--hadnoticed nothing. At home he was always smoking, sitting silent, with dimeyes, like a man in a dream--or reading his father's old books, "goodbooks, " which filled Bessie with a sense of dreariness unspeakable--orpondering his weekly paper. 

But she believed he had begun to notice the drink. Drinking wasuniversal in Clinton, though there was not much drunkenness. Teetotalerswere unknown, and Isaac himself drank his beer freely, and a glass ofspirits, like anybody else, on occasion. She had been used for years tofetch his beer from the public, and she had been careful. But there weresigns----

Oh! if she could only think of some way of putting it back--this thirtyodd pounds. She held her head between her hands, thinking and thinking. Couldn't that little lawyer man to whom she went every month at Bedford, to fetch her legacy money--couldn't he lend it her, and keep her moneytill it was paid? She could make up a story, and give him something forhimself to induce him to hold his tongue. She had thought of this oftenbefore, but never so urgently as now. She would take the carrier's cartto Bedford next day, while Isaac was at work, and try. 

Yet all the time despair was at her heart. So hard to undo! Yet howeasy it had been to take and to spend. She thought of that day inSeptember, when she had got the news of her legacy--six shillings a weekfrom an old aunt--her father's aunt, whose very existence she hadforgotten. The wild delight of it! Isaac got sixteen shillings a weekin wages--here was nearly half as much again. She was warned that itwould come to an end in two years. But none the less it seemed to her afortune--and all her life, before it came, mere hard pinching andendurance. She had always been one to spend where she could. Old Johnhad often rated her for it. So had Isaac. But that was his money. Thiswas hers, and he who, for religious reasons, had never made friends withor thought well of any of her family, instinctively disliked the moneywhich had come from them, and made few inquiries into the spending of it. 

Oh! the joy of those first visits to Frampton, when all the shops hadseemed to be there for her, and she their natural mistress! How readypeople had been to trust her in the village! How tempting it had been tobrag and make a mystery! That old skinflint, Mrs. Moulsey, at "theshop, " she had been all sugar and sweets _then_. 

And a few weeks later--six, seven weeks later--about the beginning ofOctober, these halcyon days had all come to an end. She owed what shecould not pay--people had ceased to smile upon her--she was harassed, excited, worried out of her life. 

Old familiar wonder of such a temperament! How can it be so easy tospend, so delightful to promise, and so unreasonably, so unjustlydifficult, to pay?

She began to be mortally afraid of Isaac--of the effect of disclosures. One night she was alone in the cottage, almost beside herself under thepressure of one or two claims she could not meet--one claim especially, that of a little jeweller, from whom she had bought a gold ring and abrooch at Frampton--when the thought of John's hoard swept uponher--clutched her like something living and tyrannical, not to be shakenoff. 

It struck her all in an instant that there was another cupboard in thelittle parlour, exactly like that on the stairs. The lower cupboard hada key--what if it fitted?

The Devil must have been eager and active that night, for the key turnedin the lock with a smoothness that made honesty impossible--almostfoolish. And the old, weak lock on the box itself--why, a chisel hadsoon made an end of that! Only five minutes--it had been so quick--therehad been no trouble. God had made no sign at all. 

Since! All the village smiles--the village flatteries recovered--anorgie of power and pleasure--new passions and excitements--above all, therising passion of drink, sweeping in storms through a weak nature thatalternately opened to them and shuddered at them. And through everythingthe steadily dribbling away of the hoard--the astonishing ease andrapidity with which the coins--gold or silver--had flowed through herhands! How could one spend so much in meat and dress, in beer and gin, in giving other people beer and gin? How was it possible? She sat lostin miserable thoughts, a mist around her. . . . 

"Wal, I niver!" said a low, astonished voice at the foot of the stairs. 

Bessie rose to her feet with a shriek, the heart stopping in her breast. The door below was ajar, and through the opening peered a face--thevicious, drunken face of her husband's eldest son, Timothy Costrell. 

The man below cast one more look of amazement at the woman standing onthe top stair, at the candle behind her, at the open box. Then an ideastruck him: he sprang up the stairs at a bound. 

"By gosh!" he said, looking down at the gold and silver. "_By gosh!_"

Bessie tried to thrust him back. "What are you here for?" she askedfiercely, her trembling lips the colour of the whitewashed wall behind. "You get off at onst, or I'll call yer father. "

He pushed her contemptuously aside. The swish of her dress caught thecandle, and by good fortune put it out, or she would have been in ablaze. Now there was only the light from the paraffin lamp in thekitchen below striking upwards through the open door. 

She fell against the doorway of her bedroom, panting and breathless, watching him. 

He seated himself in her place, and stooped to look at the box. On theinside of the lid was pasted a discoloured piece of paper, and on thepaper was written, in a round, laborious hand, the name, "JohnBolderfield. "

"My blazes!" he said slowly, his bloodshot eyes opening wider than ever. "It's old John's money! So yo've been after it, eh?"

He turned to her with a grin, one hand on the box. He had been trampingfor more than three months, during which time they had heard nothing ofhim. His filthy clothes scarcely hung together. His cheeks were hollowand wolfish. From the whole man there rose a sort of exhalation ofsodden vice. Bessie had seen him drunken and out at elbows before, butnever so much of the beast as this. 

However, by this time she had somewhat recovered herself, and, approaching him, she stooped and tried to shut the box. 

"You take yourself off, " she said, desperately, pushing him with herfist. "That money's no business o' yourn, It's John's, an' he's comin'back directly. He gave it us to look after, an' I wor countin' it. March!--there's your father comin'!"

And with all her force she endeavoured to wrench his hand away. He toreit from her, and hit out at her backwards--a blow that sent her reelingagainst the wall. 

"Yo take yer meddlin' fist out o' that!" he said. "Father ain't coming, and if he wor, I 'spect I could manage the two on yer--_Keowntin'_ it--"he mimicked her. "Oh! yer a precious innercent, ain't yer? But I knowall about yer. Bless yer, I've been in at the Spotted Deer to-night, andthere worn't nothin' else talked of but yo' and yor goin's on. Therewon't be a tongue in the place to-morrow that won't be a-waggin' aboutyer--yur a public charickter, yo' are--they'll be sendin' the reportersdown on yer for a hinterview. 'Where the devil do she get the money?'they says. "

He threw his curly head back and laughed till his sides shook. 

"Lor', I didn't think I wor going to know quite so soon! An' sich queer'arf-crowns, they ses, as she keeps a-changin'. Jarge somethin'--an oldcove in a wig. An' 'ere they is, I'll be blowed--some on 'em. Well, yera nice 'un, yer are!"

He stared her up and down with a kind of admiration. 

Bessie began to cry feebly--the crying of a lost soul. 

"Tim, if yer'll go away an' hold yer tongue, I'll give yer five o' themsuverins, and not tell yer father nothin'. "

"Five on 'em?" he said, grinning. "Five on 'em, eh?"

And, dipping his hands into the box, he began deliberately shovelling thewhole hoard into his trousers and waist-coat pockets. 

Bessie flung herself upon him. He gave her one business-like blow, whichknocked her down against the bedroom door. The door yielded to her fall, and she lay there half stunned, the blood dripping from her temple. 

"Noa, I'll not take 'em all, " he said, not even troubling to look whereshe had fallen. "That 'ud be playing it rayther too low down on oldJohn. I'll leave 'im two--jest two--for luck. "

He buttoned up his coat tightly, then turned to throw a last glance atBessie. He had always disliked his father's second wife, and his senseof triumph was boundless. 

"Oh! yer not hurt, " he said; "yer shammin'. I advise yer to look sharpwith shuttin' up. Father'll be up the hill in two or three minutes now. Sorry I can't 'elp yer, now yer've set me up so comfortabul. Bye-bye!"

He ran down the stairs. She, as her senses revived, heard him open theback-door, cross the little garden, and jump the hedge at the end of it. 

Then she lay absolutely motionless, till suddenly there struck on her earthe distant sound of heavy steps. They roused her like a goad. Shedragged herself to her feet, shut the box, had just time to throw it intothe cupboard and lock the door, when she heard her husband walk into thekitchen. She crept into her own room, threw herself on the bed, andwrapped her head and eyes in an old shawl, shivering so that themattresses shook. 

"Bessie, where are yer?"

She did not answer. He made a sound of astonishment, and, finding nocandle, took the lamp and mounted the stairs. They were covered withtraces of muddy snow, and at the top he stooped to examine a spot uponthe boards. It was blood; and his heart thumped in his breast. 

"Bessie, whatever is the matter?"

For by this time he had perceived her on the bed. He put down the lampand came to the bedside to look at her. 

"I've 'ad a fall, " she said, faintly. "I tripped up over my skirt as Iwor comin' up to look at Arthur. My head's all bleedin'. Get me somewater from over there. "

His countenance fell sadly. But he got the water, exclaiming when he sawthe wound. 

He bathed it clumsily, then tied a bit of rag round it, and made her headeasy with the pillow. She did not speak, and he sat on beside her, looking at her pale face, and torn, as the silent minutes passed, betweenconflicting impulses. He had just passed an hour listening to a goodman's plain narrative of a life spent for Christ, amid fever-swamps, andhuman beings more deadly still. The vicar's friend was a missionarybishop, and a High Churchman; Isaac, as a staunch Dissenter by convictionand inheritance, thought ill both of bishops and Ritualists. Nevertheless, he had been touched; he had been fired. Deep, though oftenperplexed, instincts in his own heart had responded to the spiritualpassion of the speaker. The religious atmosphere had stolen about him, melting and subduing. 

And the first effect of it had been to quicken suddenly his domesticconscience; to make him think painfully of Bessie and the children as heclimbed the hill. Was his wife going the way of his son? And he, sitting day after day like a dumb dog, instead of striving with her!

He made up his mind hurriedly. "Bessie, " he said, stooping to her andspeaking in a strange voice, "Bessie, had yer been to Dawson's?"

Dawson was the landlord of the Spotted Deer. 

Bessie was long in answering. At last she said, almost inaudibly--

"Yes. "

She fully understood what he had meant by the question, and she wonderedwhether he would fall into one of his rages and beat her. 

Instead, his hand sought clumsily for hers. 

"Bessie, yer shouldn't; yer mustn't do it no more; it'll make a bad womanof yer. I know as I'm not good to live with; I don't make thingspleasant to yer; but I've been thinkin'; I'll try if yo'll try. "

Bessie burst into tears. It seemed as though her life were breakingwithin her. Never since their early married days had he spoken to herlike this. And she was in such piteous need of comfort; of some stronghand to help her out of the black pit in which she lay. The wild impulsecrossed her to sit up and tell him--to throw it all on Timothy, to showhim the cupboard and the box. Should she tell him; brave it all now thathe was like this? Between them they might find a way--make it good. 

Then the thought of the man in the public-house, of the half-crowns, ahost of confused and guilty memories, swept upon her. How could she everget herself out of it? Her heart beat so that it seemed a live creaturestrangling and silencing her. She was still fighting with her tears andher terror when she heard Isaac say--

"I know yer'll try, and I'll help yer. I'll be a better husband to yer, I swear I will. Give us a kiss, old woman. "

She turned her face, sobbing, and he kissed her cheek. 

Then she heard him say in another tone--

"An' I got a bit o' news down at the Club as will liven yer up. Parkinson was there; just come over from Frampton to see his mother; an'he says John will be here to-morrer or next day. 'Ee seed himyesterday--pulled down dreadful--quite the old man, 'ee says. An' Johntold him as he was comin' 'ome directly to live comfortable. "

Bessie drew her shawl over her head. 

"To-morrer, did yer say?" she asked in a whisper. 

"Mos' like. Now, you go to sleep; I'll put out the lamp. "

But all night long Bessie lay wide awake in torment, her soul hardeningwithin her, little by little. 

SCENE IV

Just before dark on the following day a man descended from a down trainat the Clinton Magna station. The porters knew him and greeted him; sodid one or two labourers outside, as he set off to walk to the village, which was about a mile distant. 

"Well, John, so yer coom back, " said one of them, an old man, graspingthe newcomer by the hand. "An' I can't say as yer looks is any creditto Frampton--no, that aa can't. "

John, indeed, wore a sallow and pinched air, and walked lamely, with astick. 

"Noa, " he said peevishly; "it's a beastly place is Frampton; a damp, nassty hole as iver I saw--gives yer the rheumaticks to look at it. I've 'ad a doose of a time, I 'ave, I can tell yer--iver sense I went. But I'll pull up now. "

"Aye, this air 'll do yer, " said the other. "Where are yer stoppin'?Costrells'?"

John nodded. 

"They don't know nothin' about my comin', but I dessay they'll find mesomethin' to sleep on. I'll 'ave my own place soon, and some one tolook arter it. "

He drew himself up involuntarily, with the dignity that waits onproperty. A laugh, rather jeering than cordial, ran through the groupof labourers. 

"Aye, yer'll be livin' at your ease, " said the man who had spokenfirst. "When will yo' give us a drink, yer lardship?"

The others grinned. 

"Where's your money, John?" said a younger man, suddenly staring hardat the returned wanderer. 

John started. 

"Don't you talk your nonsense!" he said fretfully; "an' I must begetting on, afore dark. "

He went his way, but, as he turned a corner of the road, he saw themstill standing where he had left them. They seemed to be watching hisprogress, which astonished him. 

A light of windy sunset lay spread over the white valley, and thefreshening gusts drove the powdery snow before them, and sent littlestabs of pain through John's shrinking body. Yet how glad he was tofind himself again between those familiar hedges, to see thechurch-tower in front of him, the long hill to his right! His heartswelled at once with longing and satisfaction. During his Framptonjob, and in the infirmary, he had suffered much, physically andmentally. He had missed Eliza and the tendance of years more than hehad ever imagined he could; and he had found himself too old for newfaces and a new society. When he fell ill he had been sorely temptedto send for some of his money, and get himself nursed and cared for atthe respectable lodging where he had put up. But no; in the end he sethis teeth and went into the infirmary. He had planned not to touch hishoard till he had done with the Frampton job and returned to Clintonfor good. His peasant obstinacy could not endure to be beaten; nor, indeed, could he bring himself to part with his keys, to trust theopening of the hoard even to Isaac. 

Since then he had passed through many weary weeks, sometimes of acutepain, sometimes of sinking weakness, during which he had been hauntedby many secret torments, springing mainly from the fear of death. Hehad almost been driven to make his will. But in the end superstitiousreluctance prevailed. He had not made his will; and to dwell on thefact gave him the sensation of having escaped a bond, if not a danger. He did not want to leave his money behind him; he wanted to spend it, as he had told Eliza and Mary Anne and Bessie scores of times. To haveassigned it to any one else, even after his death, would have made itless his own. 

Ah, well! those bad weeks were done, and here he was, at home again. Suddenly, as he tramped on, he caught sight against the hill ofBessie's cottage, the blue smoke from it blown across the rime-ladentrees behind it. He drew in his breath with a deep, tremulous delight. That buoyant self-congratulation indeed which had stood between him andthe pain of Eliza's death was gone. Rather, there was in him aprofound yearning for rest, for long dreaming by the fire or in thesun, with his pipe to smoke, and Jim's Louisa to look after him, andnothing to do but to draw a half-crown from his box when he wanted it. No more hard work in rain and cold; and no cringing, either, to theyoung and prosperous for the mere fault of age. The snowy valley, withits circling woods, opened to him like a mother's breast; the sight ofit filled him with a hundred simple hopes and consolations; he hurriedto bury himself in it and be at peace. 

He was within a hundred yards of the first house in the village, whenhe saw a tall figure in uniform approaching, and recognised Watson. 

At sight of him the policeman stopped short, and John was conscious ofa moment's vague impression of something strange in Watson's looks. 

However, Watson shook hands with great friendliness. 

"Well, I'm glad to see yer, John, I'm sure. An' now, I s'pose, you'reback for good?"

"Aye. I'm not going away no more. I've done my share--I wants a bito' rest. "

"Of course yer do. You've been ill, 'aven't yer? You look like it. An' yer puttin' up at Costrells'?"

"Yes, till I can turn round a bit. 'Ave yer seen any thin' ov 'em?'Ow's Bessie?"

Watson faced back towards the village. 

"I'll walk with yer a bit--I'm in no 'urry. Oh, she's all right. You'eard of her bit o' money?"

John opened his eyes. 

"Noa, I don' know as I did. "

"It wor an aunt o' hers, soa I understan'--quite a good bit o' money. "

"Did yer iver hear the name?" said John, eagerly. 

"Some one livin' at Bedford, I did 'ear say. "

John laughed, not without good-humoured relief. It would have touchedhis vanity had his niece been discovered to be richer than himself. 

"Oh, that's old Sophy Clarke!" he said. "Her 'usband bought the leaseo' two little 'ouses in Church Street, and they braat 'er in sixshillin's a week for years, an' she allus said she'd leave it to Bessieif she wor took afore the lease wor up. But the lease ull be up end o'next year, I know, for I saw the old lady myself last Michaelmastwelve-month, an' she told me all about it, though I worn't to tellnobody meself. An' I didn't know Sophy wor gone. Ah, well! it's notmuch, but it's 'andy--it's 'andy. "

"Six shillin's a week!" said Watson, raising his eyebrows. "It's anice bit o' money while it lassts, but I'd ha' thought Mrs. Costrell'ad come into a deal more nor that. "

"Oh, but she's sich a one to spend, is Bessie!" said John, anxiously. "It's surprisin' 'ow the money runs. It's sixpence 'ere, an' sixpencethere, allus dribblin', an' dribblin', out ov 'er. I've allus tole 'eras she'll end 'er days on the parish. "

"Sixpences!" said Watson, with a laugh. "It's not sixpences as Mrs. Costrell's 'ad the spendin' of this last month or two--it's_suverins_--an' plenty ov 'em. You may be sure you've got the wrongtale about the money, John; it wor a deal more nor you say. "

John stood stock still at the word "sovereigns, " his jaw dropping. 

"_Suverins_, " he said trembling; "suverins? Bessie ain't got nosuverins. Isaac arns sixteen shillin' a week. "

The colour was ebbing fast from his cheek and lips. Watson threw him aquick, professional glance, then rapidly consulted with himself. No;he decided to hold his tongue. 

"Yo' _are_ reg'lar used up, " he said, taking hold of the old fellowkindly by the arm. "Shall I walk yer up the hill?"

John withdrew himself. 

"_Suverins!_" he repeated, in a low, hoarse voice. "She ain't got 'em, I tell yer--she ain't got 'em!"

The last words rose to a sort of cry, and, without another word toWatson, the old man started at a feeble run, his head hanging. 

Watson followed him, afraid lest he should drop in the road. Instead, John seemed to gather strength. He made straight for the hill, takingno heed whatever of two or three startled acquaintances who stopped andshouted to him. When the ground began to rise he stumbled again andagain, but, by a marvel, did not fall, and his pace hardly slackened. Watson had difficulty in keeping up with him. 

But when the policeman reached his own cottage on the side of the road, he stopped, panting, and contented himself with looking after themounting figure. As soon as it turned the corner of the Costrells'lane, he went into his own house, said a word to his wife, and sathimself down at his own back door to await events--to ponder, also, afew conversations he had held that morning, with Mrs. Moulsey at "theshop, " with Dawson, with Hall the butcher. Poor old John--poor oldfellow!

When Bolderfield reached the paling in front of the Costrells' cottage, he paused a moment, holding for support to the half-open gate andstruggling for breath. "I must keep my 'edd, I must, " he was saying tohimself piteously; "don' yer be a fool, John Borroful, don' yer be afool!"

As he stood there, a child's face pushed the window-blind of thecottage aside, and the lame boy's large eyes looked Bolderfield up anddown. Immediately after, the door opened, and all four children stoodhuddling behind each other on the threshold. They all looked shyly atthe newcomer. They knew him, but in six months they had grown strangeto him. 

"Arthur, where's your mother?" said John, at last able to walk firmlyup to the door. 

"Don' know. "

"When did yer see her lasst?"

"She wor 'ere gettin' us our tea, " said another child; "but she didn'teat nothin'. "

John impatiently pushed the children before him back into the kitchen. 

"You 'old your tongues, " he said, "an' stay 'ere. "

And he made for the door in the kitchen wall. But Arthur caught holdof his coat tails and clung to them. 

"Yer oughtn't to go up there--mother don't let any one go there. "

John wrenched himself violently away. 

"Oh, don't she! yo' take your 'ands away, yer little varmint, or I'llbrain yer. "

He raised his stick, threatening. The child, terrified, fell back, andJohn, opening the door, rushed up the stairs. 

He was so terribly excited that his fumbling fingers could hardly findthe ribbon round his neck. At last he drew it over his head, and madestupendous efforts to steady his hand sufficiently to put the key inthe lock. 

The children below heard a sharp cry directly the cupboard door wasopened; then the frantic dragging of a box on to the stairs, the creakof hinges--a groan long and lingering--and then silence. 

They clung together in terror, and the little girls began to cry. Atlast Arthur took courage and opened the door. 

The old man was sitting on the top stair, supported sideways by thewall, his head hanging forward, and his hands dropping over his knees, in a dead faint. 

At the sight all four children ran helter-skelter into the lane, shouting "Mammy! mammy!" in an anguish of fright. Their clamour wascaught by the fierce north wind, which had begun to sweep the hill, andwas borne along till it reached the ears of a woman who was sittingsewing in a cottage some fifty yards further up the lane. She steppedto her door, opened it and listened. 

"It's at Bessie's, " she said; "whativer's wrong wi' the childer?"

By this time Arthur had begun to run towards her. Darkness was fallingrapidly, but she could distinguish his small figure against the snow, and his halting gait. 

"What is it, Arthur?--what is it, lammie?"

"O Cousin Mary Anne! Cousin Mary Anne! It's Uncle John, an' 'ee'sdead!"

She ran like the wind at the words, catching at the child's hand in thedark, and dragging him along with her. 

"Where is he, Arthur?--don't take on, honey!"

The child hurried on with her, sobbing, and she was soon on the stairsbeside the unconscious John. 

Mary Anne looked with amazement at the cupboard and the open box. Thenshe laid the old man on the floor, her gentle face working with theeffort to remember what the doctor had once told her of the best way ofdealing with persons in a faint. She got water, and she sent Arthur toa neighbour for brandy. 

"Where's your mother, child?" she asked, as she despatched him. 

"Don' know, " repeated the boy, stupidly. 

"Oh, for goodness' sake, she's never at Dawson's again!" groaned MaryAnne to herself; "she wor there last night, an' the night afore that. And her mother's brother lyin' like this in 'er house!"

He was so long in coming round that her ignorance began to fear theworst. But, just as she was telling the eldest girl to put on her hatand jacket and run for the doctor, poor John revived. 

He struggled to a sitting posture, looked wildly at her and at the box. As his eye caught the two sovereigns still lying at the bottom, he gavea cry of rage, and got upon his feet with a mighty effort. 

"Where's Bessie, I tell yer? Where's the huzzy gone? I'll have thelaw on 'er! I'll make 'er give it up--by the Lord I will!"

"John, what is it? John, my dear!" cried Mary Anne, supporting him, and terrified lest he should pitch headlong down the stairs. 

"Yo' 'elp me down, " he said violently. "We'll find 'er--we'll wring itout ov 'er--the mean, thievin' vagabond! Changin' suverins, 'as she?We'll soon know about that--yo' 'elp me down, I tell yer. "

And, with her assistance, he hobbled down the stairs, hardly able tostand. Mary Anne's eyes were starting out of her head with fear andagitation, and the children were staring at the old man as he cametottering into the kitchen, when a sound at the outer door made themall turn. 

The door opened, and Bessie appeared on the threshold. 

At sight of her John seemed to lose his senses. He rushed at her, threatening, imploring, reviling--while Mary Anne could only cling tohis arms and coat, lest he should attempt some bodily mischief. 

Bessie closed the door, leant against it, and folded her arms. She waswhite and haggard, but perfectly cool. In this moment of excitement itstruck neither John nor Mary Anne--nor, indeed, herself--that hermanner, with its brutality, and its poorly feigned surprise, was themost revealing element in the situation. 

"What's all this about yer money?" she said, staring John in the face. "What do I know about yer money? 'Ow dare yer say such things? I'aven't anythin' to do with it, an' never 'ad. "

He raved at her, in reply, about the position in which he had found thebox--on the top of its fellow instead of underneath, where he hadplaced it--about the broken lock, the sovereigns she had been changing, and the things Watson had said of her--winding up with a peremptorydemand for his money. 

"Yo' gi' me my money back, " he said, holding out a shaking hand. "Yercan't 'ave spent it all--'tain't possible--an' yer ain't chucked it outo' winder. Yer've got it somewhere 'idden, an' I'll get it out o' youif I die for 't!"

Bessie surveyed him steadily. She had not even flinched at the mentionof the sovereigns. 

"What yer 'aven't got, yer can't give, " she said. "I don' know nothin'about it, an' I've tole yer. There's plenty o' bad people in theworld--beside me. Somebody came in o' nights, I suppose, an' pickedthe lock--there's many as 'ud think nothin' of it. And it 'ud be easydone--we all sleeps 'ard. "

"Bessie!" cried Mary Anne, outraged by something in her tone, "aren'tyer sorry for 'im?"

She pointed to the haggard and trembling man. 

Bessie turned to her reluctantly. "Aye, I'm sorry, " she said sullenly. "But he shouldn't fly out at yer without 'earin' a word. 'Ow should Iknow anythin' about his money? 'Ee locked it up hisself, an' tuk thekeys. "

"An' them suverins, " roared John, rattling his stick on the floor;"where did yer get them suverins?"

"I got 'em from old Sophy Clarke--leastways, from Sophy Clarke'slawyer. And it ain't no business o' yourn. "

At this John fell into a frenzy, shouting at her in inarticulatepassion, calling her liar and thief. 

She fronted it with perfect composure. Her fine eyes blazed, butotherwise her face might have been a waxen mask. With her, in thisscene, was all the tragic dignity; with him, the weakness and vulgarity. 

At last the little widow caught her by the arm, and drew her from thedoor. 

"Let me take 'im to my place, " she pleaded: "it's no good talkin' while'ee's like 'ee is--not a bit o' good. John--John, dear! you come alongwi' me. Shall I get Saunders to come an' speak to yer?"

A gleam of sudden hope shot into the old man's face. He had notthought of Saunders; but Saunders had a head; he might unravel thisaccursed thing. 

"Aye!" he said, lurching forward, "let's find Saunders--coomalong--let's find Saunders. "

Mary Anne guided him through the door, Bessie standing aside. As thewidow passed, she touched Bessie piteously. 

"Oh, Bessie, yer _didn't_ do it--say yer didn't!"

Bessie looked at her dry-eyed and contemptuous. Something in thespeaker's emotion seemed to madden her. 

"Don't yer be a fool, Mary Anne--that's all!" she said scornfully, andMary Anne fled from her. 

When the door had closed upon them Bessie came up to the fire, herteeth chattering. She sank down in front of it, spreading out herhands. The children silently crowded up to her; first she pushed themaway, then she caught at the child nearest to her, pressed its fairhead against her, then again roughly put it aside. She was accustomedto chatter with them, scold them and slap them; but to-night they wereuneasily dumb. They looked at her with round eyes; and at last theirlooks annoyed her. She told them to go to bed, and they slunk away, gaping at the open box on the stairs, and huddling together overhead, all on one bed, in the bitter cold, to whisper to each other. Isaacwas a stern parent; Bessie a capricious one; and the children, thoughthey could be riotous enough by themselves, were nervous and easilycowed at home. 

Bessie, left alone, sat silently over the fire, her thin lipstight-set. She would deny everything--_everything_. Let them findout what they could. Who could prove what was in John's box when heleft it? Who could prove she hadn't got those half-crowns in changesomewhere?

The reflection of the day had only filled her with a passionate andfierce regret. _Why_ had she not followed her first impulse and thrownit all on Timothy?--told the story to Isaac while she was stillbleeding from his son's violence? It had been her only chance, and outof pure stupidness she had lost it. To have grasped it might at leasthave made him take her part, if it had forced him to give up Timothy. And who would have listened to Timothy's tales?

She sickened at the thought of her own folly, beating her knee with herclenched fist. For, to tell the tale now would only be to make herdoubly vile in Isaac's eyes. He would not believe her--no one wouldbelieve her. What motive could she plead for her twenty-four hours ofsilence, she knowing that John was coming back immediately? Isaacwould only hate her for throwing it on Timothy. 

Then again, the memory of the half-crowns, and the village talk--andWatson--would close upon her, putting her in a cold sweat. 

When would Isaac come? Who would tell him? As she looked forward tothe effect upon him, all her muscles stiffened. If he drove her to it, aye, she _would_ tell him--she didn't care a ha'porth, she vowed. Ifhe must have it, let him. But as the name of Isaac, the thought ofIsaac, hovered in her brain, she must needs brush away wild tears. That morning, for the first time for months, he had been so kind to herand the children, so chatty and cheerful. 

Distant steps along the lane! She sprang to her feet, ran into theback kitchen, tied on her apron, hastily filled an earthenware bowlwith water from the pump, and, carrying it back to the front kitchen, began to wash up the tea-things, making a busy household clatter as sheslid them into the bowl. 

A confused sound of feet approached the house, and there was a knock. 

"Come in, " said Bessie. 

Three figures appeared, the huge form of Saunders the smith in front, John and Mary Anne Waller behind. 

Saunders took off his cap politely. The sight of his bald head, hisdouble chin, his mouth with its queer twitch, which made him seem asthough perpetually about to laugh, if he had not perpetually thoughtbetter of it, filled Bessie with angry excitement. She barely noddedto him, in reply to his greeting. 

"May we come in, Mrs. Costrell?" Saunders inquired, in his mostdeliberate voice. 

"If yer want to, " said Bessie, shortly, taking out a cup and drying it. 

Saunders drew in the other two and shut the door. 

"Sit down, John. Sit down, Mrs. Waller. "

John did as he was told. Dishevelled and hopeless misery spoke in hisstained face, his straggling hair, his shirt burst open at the neck andshowing his wrinkled throat. But he fixed his eyes passionately onSaunders, thirsting for every word. 

"Well, Mrs. Costrell, " said Saunders, settling himself comfortably, "you'll be free to confess, won't yer, this is an oogly business--avery oogly business? Now, will yer let us ask yer a question or two?"

"I dessay, " said Bessie, polishing her cup. 

"Well, then--to begin reg'lar, Mrs. Costrell--yo' agree, don't yer, asMuster Bolderfield put his money in your upstairs cupboard?"

"I agree as he put his box there"--said Bessie, sharply. 

John broke into inarticulate and abusive clamour. Bessie turned uponhim. 

"'Ow did any of us know what yer'd got in your box? Did yer ever showit to me, or Mary Anne there, or any livin' soul in Clinton? Did yer?"

She waited, hawk-like, for the answer. 

"Did yer, John?" repeated Saunders, judicially. 

John groaned, rocking himself to and fro. 

"Noa. I niver did--I niver did, " he said. "Nobbut to Eliza--an' she'sgone--she's gone!"

"Keep your 'ead, John, " said Saunders, putting out a calming hand. "Let's get to the bottom o' this, quiet an' _reg'lar_. An' yer didn'ttell any one 'ow much yer 'ad?"

"Nobbut Eliza--nobbut Eliza!" said the old man again. 

"Yer didn't tell _me_, I know, " said Saunders, blandly. 

John seemed to shrink together under the smith's glance. If only hehad not been a jealous fool, and had left it with Saunders. 

Saunders, however, refrained for the present from drawing hisself-evident moral. He sat twirling his cap between his knees, and hisshrewd eye travelled round the kitchen, coming back finally to Bessie, who was washing and drying diligently. As he watched her coolmovements Saunders felt the presence of an enemy worthy of his steel, and his emulation rose. 

"I understan', Mrs. Costrell, " he said, speaking with great civility, "as the cupboard where John put his money is a cupboard _hon_ thestairs? Not in hany room, but _hon_ the stairs? Yer'll kindly correckme if I say anythin' wrong. "

Bessie nodded. 

"Aye--top o' the stairs--right-'and side, " groaned John. 

"An' John locked it hisself, an' tuk the key?" Saunders proceeded. 

John plucked at his neck again, and, dumbly, held out the key. 

"An' there worn't nothin' wrong wi' the lock when yo' opened it, John?"

"Nothin', Muster Saunders--I'll take my davy. "

Saunders ruminated. 

"Theer's a cupboard there, " he said suddenly, raising his hand andpointing to the cupboard beside the fireplace. "Is't anythin' like thecupboard on th' stairs, John?"

"Aye, 'tis!" said John, startled and staring. "Aye, 'tis, MusterSaunders!"

Saunders rose. 

"Per'aps, " he said slowly, "Mrs. Costrell will do us the favour ovlettin' us hexamine that 'ere cupboard?"

He walked across to it. Bessie's hand dropped; she turned sharply, supporting herself against the table, and watched him, her chestheaving. 

"There's no key 'ere, " said Saunders, stooping to look at the lock. "Try yours, John. "

John rushed forward, but Bessie put herself in the way. 

"What are yer meddlin' with my 'ouse for?" she said fiercely. "Justmek yourselves scarce, all the lot o' yer! I don't know nothin' abouthis money, an' I'll not have yer _insultin'_ me in me own place! Getout o' my kitchen, if _yo'_ please!"

Saunders buttoned his coat. 

"Sartinly, Mrs. Costrell, sartinly, " he said, with emphasis. "Comealong, John. Yer must get Watson and put it in 'is hands. 'Ee's thelaw, is Watson. Maybe as Mrs. Costrell 'ull listen to _'im_. "

Mary Anne ran to Bessie in despair. 

"Oh, Bessie, Bessie, my dear--don't let 'em get Watson; let 'em lookinto 't theirselves--it'll be better for yer, my dear, it _will_. "

Bessie looked from one to the other, panting. Then she turned back tothe table. 

"_I_ don' care what they do, " she said, with sullen passion. "I'm notstannin' in any one's way, I tell yer. The more they finds out thebetter I'm pleased. "

The look of incipient laughter on Saunders's countenance became morepronounced--that is to say, the left-hand corner of his mouth twitcheda little higher. But it was rare for him to complete the act, and hewas not in the least minded to do so now. He beckoned to John, andJohn, trembling, took off his keys and gave them to him, pointing tothat which belonged to the treasure cupboard. 

Saunders slipped it into the lock before him. It moved with ease, backwards and forwards. 

"H'm! that's strange, " he said, taking out the key and turning it overthoughtfully in his hand. "Yer didn't think as there were _another_key in this 'ouse that would open your cupboard, did yer, Bolderfield?"

The old man sank weeping on a chair. He was too broken, too exhausted, to revile Bessie any more. 

"Yo' tell her, Muster Saunders, " he said, "to gie it me back! I'll notast for all on it, but some on it, Muster Saunders--some on it. She_can't_ 'a spent it. She must 'a got it somewhere. Yo' speak to her, Muster Saunders. It's a crule thing to rob an old man like me--an' herown mother's brother. Yo' speak to 'er--an' yo', too, Mary Anne. "

He looked piteously from one to the other. But his misery only seemedto goad Bessie to fresh fury. She turned upon him, arms akimbo. 

"Oh! an' of course it must be _me_ as robs yer! It couldn't be nobodyelse, could it? There isn't tramps, an' thieves, an' rogues--'undredsof 'em--going about o' nights? Nary one, I believe yer! There isn'tanother thief in Clinton Magna, nobbut Bessie Costrell, is ther? Butyer'll not blackguard me for nothin', I can tell yer. Now will yerjest oblige me by takin' yourselves off? I shall 'ave to clean upafter yer"--she pointed scornfully to the marks of their muddy boots onthe floor--"an' it's gettin' late. "

"One moment, Mrs. Costrell, " said Saunders, gently rubbing his hands. "With your leave, John and I 'ull just inspeck the cupboard _hup_stairsbefore leavin'--an' then we'll clear out double quick. But we'll 'aveone try if we can't 'it on somethin' as 'ull show 'ow the thief gotin--with your leave, of _coorse_. "

Bessie hesitated; then she threw some spoons she held into the waterbeside her with a violent gesture. 

"Go where yer wants, " she said, and returned to her washing. 

Saunders began to climb the narrow stairs, with John behind him. Butthe smith's small eyes had a puzzled look. 

"There's _somethin'_ rum, " he said to himself. "'Ow _did_ she spend itall? 'As she been carryin' on with some one be'ind Isaac's back, or isIsaac in it too? It's one or t'other. "

Meanwhile, Bessie, left behind, was consumed by a passionate effort ofmemory. _What_ had she done with the key the night before, after shehad locked the cupboard? Her brain was blurred. The blow--thefall--seemed to have confused even the remembrance of the scene withTimothy. How was it, for instance, that she had put the box back inthe wrong place? She put her hand to her head, trying in an anguish torecollect the exact details. 

The little widow sat, meanwhile, a few yards away, her thin handsclasped on her lap in her usual attitude of humble entreaty; her soft, grey eyes, brimmed with tears, were fixed on Bessie. Bessie did notknow that she was there--that she existed. 

The door had closed after the two men. Bessie could hear vaguemovements, but nothing more. Presently she could bear it no longer. She went to the door and opened it. 

She was just in time. By the light of the bit of candle that Johnheld, she saw Saunders sitting on the stair, the shadow of his hugeframe thrown black on the white wall; she saw him stoop suddenly, as abird pounces; she heard an exclamation--then a sound of metal. 

Her involuntary cry startled the men above. 

"All right, Mrs. Costrell, " said Saunders, briskly--"all right. We'llbe down directly. "

She came back into the kitchen, a mist before her eyes, and fellheavily on a chair by the fire. Mary Anne approached her, only to bepushed back. The widow stood listening, in an agony. 

It took Saunders a minute or two to complete his case. Then he slowlydescended the stairs, carrying the box, his great weight making thehouse shake. He entered the kitchen first, John behind him. But atthe same moment that they appeared the outer door opened, and IsaacCostrell, preceded by a gust of snow, stood on the threshold. 

"Why, John!" he cried, in amazement--"an' _Saunders_!"

He looked at them, then at Mary Anne, then at his wife. 

There was an instant's dead silence. Then the tottering John cameforward. 

"An' I'm glad yer come, Isaac, that I am--thankful! Now yer can tellme what yer wife's done with my money. D'yer mind that box? It woryou an' I carried it across that night as Watson come out on us. An'yo'll bear me witness as we locked it up, an' yo' saw me tie the twokeys roun' my neck--yo' _did_, Isaac. An' now, Isaac, "--the hoarsevoice began to tremble--"now there's two--suverins--left, and one'arf-crown--out o' seventy-one pound fower an' sixpence--seventy-onepound, Isaac! Yo'll get it out on 'er, Isaac, yer will, won't yer?"

He looked up, imploring. 

Isaac, after the first violent start, stood absolutely motionless, Saunders observing him. As one of the main props of ChurchEstablishment in the village, Saunders had no great opinion of IsaacCostrell, who stood for the dissidence of dissent. The two men hadnever been friends, and Saunders, in this affair, had, perhaps, exercised the quasi-judicial functions the village had long, by commonconsent, allowed him, with more readiness than usual. 

As soon as John ceased speaking Isaac walked up to Saunders. 

"Let me see that box, " he said peremptorily. "Put it down. "

Saunders, who had rested the box on the back of a chair, placed itgently on the table, assisted by Isaac. A few feet away stood Bessie, saying nothing, her hand holding the duster on her hip, her eyesfollowing her husband. 

He looked carefully at the two sovereigns lying on the bit of old clothwhich covered the bottom of the box, and the one half-crown thatTimothy had forgotten; he took up the bit of cloth and shook it, hefelt along the edge of the box, he examined the wrenched lock. 

Then he stood for an instant, his hand on the box, his eyes staringstraight before him in a kind of dream. 

Saunders grew impatient. He pushed John aside, and came to the table, leaning his hands upon it so as to command Isaac's face. 

"Now look 'ere, Isaac, " he said, in a different voice from any that hehad yet employed, "let's come to business. These 'ere are the facks o'this case, and 'ow we're agoin' to get over 'em I don't see. Johnleaves his money in your cupboard. Yo' an' he lock it up, an' Johngoes away with 'is keys 'ung roun' 'is neck. Yo' agree to that? Wellan' good. But there's _another_ key in your 'ouse, Isaac, as opensJohn's cupboard. Ah----"

He waved his hand in deprecation of Isaac's movement. 

"I dessay yo' didn't know nowt about it--that's noather 'ere nor there. Yo' try John's key in that there door"--he pointed to the cupboard bythe fire--"an' yo'll find it fits _ex_--act. Then, thinks I, where'sthe key as belongs to that 'ere cupboard? An' John an' I goes upstairsto look about us, an' in noa time at aw, I sees a 'ole in the skirtin'. I whips in my finger--lor' bless yer! I knew it wor there the moment Isets eyes on the hole. "

He held up the key triumphantly. By this time, no Old Bailey lawyermaking a hanging speech could have had more command of his task. 

"'Ere then we 'ave"--he checked the items off on his fingers--"boxlocked up--key in the 'ouse as fits it, unbeknown to John--money tukout--key 'idden away. But that's not all--not by long chalks--there'sanother side to the affair _hal_together. "

Saunders drew himself up, thrust his hands deep into his pockets, andcleared his throat. 

"Perhaps yer don' know--I'm sartin sure yer don' know--leastways I'mhinclined that way, --as Mrs. Costrell"--he made a polite inclinationtowards Bessie--"'ave been makin' free with money--fower--five--night aweek at the Spotted Deer--fower--five--night a week. She'd used totreat every young feller, an' plenty old 'uns too, as turned up; an'there was a many as only went to Dawson's becos they knew as she'dtreat 'em. Now, she didn't go on tick at Dawson's; she'd _pay_, --an'she allus payed in 'arf-crowns. An' those 'arf-crowns were curious'arf-crowns; an' it came into Dawson's 'ead as he'd colleck them'arf-crowns. 'Ee wanted to see summat, 'ee said--an' I dessay 'ee did. An' people began to taak. Last night theer wor a bit of a roompus, itseems, while Mrs. Costrell was a-payin' another o' them things, an'summat as was said come to my ears--an' come to Watson's. An' me an'Watson 'ave been makin' inquiries--an' Mr. Dawson wor obligin' enoughto make me a small loan, 'ee wor. Now, I've got just one question toask o' John Borroful. "

He put his hand into his waistcoat pocket, and drew out a silver coin. 

"Is that yourn, John?"

John fell upon it with a cry. 

"Aye, Saunders, it's mine. Look ye 'ere, Isaac, it's a king's 'ead. It's Willum--not Victory. I saved that 'un up when I wor a lad atMason's--an' look yer, there's my mark in the corner--every 'arf-crownI ever 'ad I marked like that. "

He held it under Isaac's staring eyes, pointing to the little scratchedcross in the corner. 

"'Ere's another, John--two on 'em, " said Saunders, pulling out a secondand a third. 

John, in a passion of hope, identified them both. 

"Then, " said Saunders, slapping the table solemnly, "theer's nobbut onemore thing to say--an' sorry I am to say it. Them coins, Isaac"--hepointed a slow finger at Bessie, whose white, fierce face movedinvoluntarily--"them 'arf-crowns wor paid across the bar lasst night, or the night afore, at Dawson's, by _yor wife_, as is now stannin'there, an' she'll deny it if she can!"

For an instant the whole group preserved their positions--the breathsuspended on their lips. 

Then Isaac strode up to his wife, and gripped her by the arms. 

"Did yer do it?" he asked her. 

He held her, looking into her eyes. Slowly she sank away from him; shewould have fallen, but for a chair that stood beside her. 

"Oh, yer brute!" she said, turning her head to Saunders an instant, andspeaking under her breath, with a kind of sob. "Yer _brute_!"

Isaac walked to the door, and threw it open. 

"Per'aps yer'll go, " he said grimly. 

And the three went, without a word. 

SCENE V

So the husband and wife were left together in the cottage room. Thedoor had no sooner closed on Saunders and his companions than Isaac wasseized with that strange sense of walking amid things unreal upon awavering earth which is apt to beset the man who has any portion of thedreamer's temperament under any sudden rush of circumstance. He drewhis hand across his brow, bewildered. The fire leapt and chattered inthe grate; the newly-washed tea-things on the table shone under thelamp; the cat lay curled, as usual, on the chair where he sat aftersupper to read his _Christian World_; yet all things were not the same. What had changed?

Then, across poor John's rifled box, he saw his wife sitting rigid onthe chair where he had left her. 

He came and sat down at the corner of the table, close to her, his chinon his hand. 

"'Ow did yer spend it?" he said, startled, as the words came out, byhis own voice, so grinding and ugly was the note of it. 

Her miserable eyes travelled over his face, seeking, as it were, forsome promise, however faint, of future help and succour, howeverdistant. 

Apparently she saw none, for her own look flamed to fresh defiance. 

"I didn't spend it. Saunders wor lyin'. "

"'Ow did yer get them half-crowns?"

"I got 'em at Bedford. Mr. Grimstone give 'em me. "

Isaac looked at her hard, his shame burning into his heart. This washow she had got her money for the gin. Of course, she had lied to himthe night before, in her account of her fall, and of that mark on herforehead, which still showed, a red disfigurement, under the hair shehad drawn across it. The sight of it, of her, began to excite in him aquick loathing. He was at bottom a man of violent passions, and, inthe presence of evil-doing so flagrant, so cruel--of a household ruinso complete--his religion failed him. 

"When was it as yer opened that box fust?" he asked her again, scorningher denials. 

She burst into a rage of tears, lifting her apron to her eyes, andflinging names at him that he scarcely heard. 

There was a little cold tea in a cup close to him that Bessie hadforgotten. He stretched out his hand, and took a mouthful, moisteninghis dry lips and throat. 

"Yer'll go to prison for this, " he said, jerking it out as he put thecup down. 

He saw her shiver. Her nerve was failing her. The convulsive sobscontinued, but she ceased to abuse him. He wondered when he should beable to get it out of her. He himself could no more have wept thaniron and fire weep. 

"Are yer goin' to tell me when yer took that money, and 'ow yer spentit? 'Cos if yer don't, I shall go to Watson. "

Even in her abasement it struck her as shameful, unnatural, that he, her husband, should say this. Her remorse returned upon her heart, like a tide driven back. She answered him not a word. 

He put his silver watch on the table. 

"I'll give yer two minutes, " he said. 

There was silence in the cottage except for the choking, hystericalsounds she could not master. Then he took up his hat again, and wentout into the snow, which was by now falling fast. 

She remained helpless and sobbing, unconscious of the passage of time, one hand playing incessantly with a child's comforter that lay besideher on the table, the other wiping away the crowding tears. But hermind worked feverishly all the time, and gradually she fought herselffree of this weeping, which clutched her against her will. 

Isaac was away for an hour. When he came back, he closed the doorcarefully, and, walking to the table, threw down his hat upon it. Hisface under its ruddy brown had suffered some radical, disintegratingchange. 

"They've traced yer, " he said hoarsely; "they've got it up totwenty-six pound, an' more. Most on it 'ere in Clinton--some on it, Muster Miles, o' Frampton, 'ull swear to. Watson 'ull go over toFrampton, for the warrant--to-morrer. "

The news shook her from head to foot. She stared at himwildly--speechless. 

"But that's not 'arf, " he went on--"not near 'arf. Do yer 'ear? Whatdid yer do with the rest? I'll not answer for keepin' my 'ands off yerif yer won't tell. "

In his trance of rage and agony, he was incapable of pity. He hadsmall need to threaten her with blows--every word stabbed. 

But her turn had come to strike back. She raised her head; shemeasured her news against his; and she did it with a kind of exultation. 

"Then I _will_ tell yer--an' I 'ope it 'ull do yer good. _I_ tookthirty-one pound o' Bolderfield's money then--but it warn't me took therest. Some one else tuk it, an' I stood by an' saw 'im. When I triedto stop 'im--look 'ere. "

She raised her hand, nodding, and pointing to the wound on her brow. 

Isaac leant heavily on the table. A horrible suspicion swept throughhim. Had she wronged him in a yet blacker way? He bent over her, breathing fast--ready to strike. 

"Who was it?"

She laughed. "Well, it wor _Timothy_, then--yur precious--beautifulson--Timothy!"

He fell back. 

"Yo're lyin', " he cried; "yer want to throw it off on some one. Howcud Timothy 'ave 'ad anythin' to do with John's money? Timothy's notbeen near the place this three months. "

"Not till lasst night, " she said, mocking him. "I'll grant yer--nottill lasst night. But it _do_ 'appen, as lasst night Timothy tookforty-one pound o' John Borroful's money out o' that box, an gotoff--clean. I'm sorry if yer don't like it--but I can't 'elp that; yo'listen 'ere. "

And, lifting a quivering finger, she told her tale at last, all thebeginning of it confused and almost unintelligible, but the scene withTimothy vivid, swift, convincing--a direct impression from the ugly, immediate fact. 

He listened, his face lying on his arms. It was true, all true. Shemight have taken more and Timothy less; no doubt she was making it outas bad as she could for Timothy. But it lay between them--his wife andhis son--it lay between them. 

"An' I 'eard yer coming, " she ended; "an' I thought I'd tell yer--an' Iwor frightened about the 'arf-crowns--people 'ad been talkin' so atDawson's--an' I didn't see no way out--an'--an'----"

She ceased, her hand plucking again at the comforter, her throatworking. 

He, too, thought of the loving words he had said to her, and the memoryof them only made his misery the more fierce. 

"An' there ain't no way out, " he said violently, raising his head. "Yer'll be took before the magistrates next week, an' the assizes 'ullbe in February, an' yer'll get six months--if yer don't get more. "

She got up from her chair as though physically goaded by the words. 

"I'll not go to jail, " she said under her breath. "I'll not----"

A sound of scorn broke from Isaac. 

"Yo' should ha' thought o' that, " he said. "Yo' should ha' thought o'that. An' what you've been sayin' about Timothy don't make it a'aporth the better--not for _yo'_! Yo' led _'im_ into it too--if it'adn't been for yo', 'ee'd never ha' _seen_ the cursed stuff. Yo'vedragged 'im down worse nor 'ee were--an' yerself--an' the childer--an'me. An' the drink, an' the lyin'!--it turns a man's stomach to thinkon it. An' I've been livin' with yer--these twelve years. I wish tothe Lord I'd never seen yer--as the children 'ad never been born!They'll be known all their life now--as 'avin' 'ad sich a woman fortheir mother!"

A demon of passion possessed him more and more. He looked at her withmurderous eyes, his hand on the table working. 

For his world, too, lay in ruins about him. Through many hard-workingand virtuous years he had counted among the righteous men of thevillage--the men whom the Almighty must needs reckon to the goodwhenever the score of Clinton Magna had to be made up. And thispre-eminence had come to be part of the habitual furniture of life andthought. To be suddenly stripped of it--to be not only disgraced byhis wife, to be thrust down himself among the low and sinful herd--thisthought made another man of him; made him wicked, as it were, perforce. For who that heard the story would ever believe that he was not thepartner of her crime? Had he not eaten and drunk of it; were not heand his children now clothed by it?

Bessie did not answer him or look at him. At any other moment shewould have been afraid of him; now she feared nothing but the image inher own mind--herself led along the village street, enclosed in thathateful building, cut off from all pleasure, all free moving andwilling--alone and despised--her children taken from her. 

Suddenly she walked into the back kitchen and opened the door leadingto the garden. 

Outside everything lay swathed in white, and a snowstorm was driftingover the deep cup of land which held the village. A dull, melancholymoonlight seemed to be somewhere behind the snow curtain, for themuffled shapes of the houses below and the long sweep of the hill werevisible through the dark, and the objects in the little garden itselfwere almost distinct. There, in the centre, rose the round, stoneedging of the well, the copious well, sunk deep into the chalk, forwhich Bessie's neighbours envied her, whence her good nature let themdraw freely at any time of drought. On either side of it the gnarledstems of old fruit-trees and the bare sticks of winter kail made blackscratches and blots upon the white. 

Bessie looked out, leaning against the doorway, and heedless of thewind that drove upon her. Down below there was a light in Watson'scottage, and a few lights from the main street beyond pierced thedarkness. The Spotted Deer must be at that moment full of people, alltalking of her and Isaac. Her eye came hastily back to thesnow-shrouded well and dwelt upon it. 

"Shut that door!" Isaac commanded from inside. She obeyed, and cameback into the kitchen. There she moved restlessly about a minute ortwo, followed by his frowning look--the look, not of a husband, but ofan enemy. Then a sudden animal yearning for rest and warmth seizedher. She opened the door by the hearth abruptly and went up, longingsimply to lie down and cover herself from the cold. 

But, after all, she turned aside to the children, and sat there forsome time at the foot of the little boys' bed. The children, especially Arthur, had been restless for long, kept awake and tremblingby the strange sounds outside their door and the loud voicesdownstairs; but, with the deep silence that had suddenly fallen on thehouse after Isaac had gone away to seek his interview with Watson, sleep had come to them, and even Arthur, on whose thin cheeks thesmears left by crying were still visible, was quite unconscious of hismother. She looked at them from time to time, by the light of a bit ofa candle she had placed on a box beside her; but she did not kiss them, and her eyes had no tears. From time to time she looked quickly roundher, as though startled by a sound, a breathing. 

Presently, shivering with cold, she went into her own room. There, mechanically, she took off her outer dress, as though to go to bed; butwhen she had done so her hands fell by her side; she stood motionlesstill, suddenly, wrapping an old shawl round her, she took up her candleand went downstairs again. 

As she pushed open the door at the foot of the stairs she saw Isaac, where she had left him, sitting on his chair bent forward, his handsdropping between his knees, his gaze fixed on a bit of dying fire inthe grate. 

"Isaac!"

He looked up with the unwillingness of one who hates the sound hehears, and saw her standing on the lowest step. Her black hair hadfallen upon her shoulders, her quick breath shook the shawl she heldabout her, and the light in her hand showed the anguished brightness ofthe eyes. 

"Isaac, are yer comin' up?"

The question maddened him. He turned to look at her more fixedly. 

"Comin' up? Noa, I'm not comin' up--so now know. Take yerself off, an' be quick. "

She trembled. 

"Are yer goin' to sleep down 'ere, Isaac?"

"Aye, or wherever I likes: it's no concern o' yourn. I'm no 'usband o'yourn from this day forth. Take yerself off, I say!--I'll 'ave nothief for _my_ wife!"

But, instead of going, she stepped down into the kitchen. His wordshad broken her down; she was crying again. 

"Isaac, I'd ha' put it back, " she said, imploring. "I wor goin' in toBedford to see Mr. Grimstone--'ee'd ha' managed it for me. I'd a'worked extra--I could ha' done it--if it 'adn't been for Timothy. Ifyou'll 'elp--an' you'd oughter, for yer _are_ my 'usband, whativer yermay say--we could pay John back--some day. Yo' can go to 'im, an' toWatson, an' say as we'll pay it back--yo' _could_, Isaac. I can taketer the plattin' again, an' I can go an' work for Mrs. Drew--she askedme again lasst week. Mary Anne 'ull see to the childer. Yo' go toJohn, Isaac, to-morrer--an'--an'--to Watson. All they wants is themoney back. Yer couldn't--yer couldn't--see me took to prison, Isaac. "

She gasped for breath, wiping the mist from her eyes with the edge ofher shawl. 

But all that she said only maddened the man's harsh and pessimistnature the more. The futility of her proposals, of her daring tothink, after his fiat and the law's had gone forth, that there was anyway out of what she had done, for her or for him, drove him to frenzy. And his wretched son was far away; so he must vent the frenzy on her. The melancholia, which religion had more or less restrained andcomforted during a troubled lifetime, became, on this tragic night, awild-beast impulse that must have its prey. 

He rose suddenly and came towards her, his eyes glaring, and a burst ofinvective on his white lips. Then he made a rush for a heavy stickthat leant against the wall. 

She fled from him, reached her bedroom in safety, and bolted the door. She heard him give a groan on the stairs, throw away the stick anddescend again. 

Then, for nearly two hours, there was absolute stillness once more inthis miserable house. Bessie had sunk, half fainting, on a chair bythe bed, and lay there, her head lying against the pillow. 

But in a very short time the blessed numbness was gone, andconsciousness became once more a torture, the medium of terrors not tobe borne. Isaac hated her--she would be taken from her children--shefelt Watson's grip upon her arm--she saw the jeering faces at thevillage doors. 

At times a wave of sheer bewilderment swept across her. How had itcome about that she was sitting there like this? Only two days beforeshe had been everybody's friend. Life had been perpetually gay andexciting. She had had qualms indeed, moments of a quick anguish, before the scene in the Spotted Deer. But there had been always somethought to protect her from herself. John was not coming back for along, long time. She would replace the money--of course she would!And she would not take any more--or only a very little. Meanwhile, thehours floated by, dressed in a colour and variety they had never yetpossessed for her--charged with all the delights of wealth, as such ahuman being under such conditions is able to conceive them. 

Her nature, indeed, had never gauged its own capacities for pleasuretill within the last few months. Excitement, amusement, society--shehad grown to them; they had evoked in her a richer and fuller life, expanded and quickened all the currents of her blood. As she satshivering in the darkness and solitude, she thought, with a sicklonging, of the hours in the public-house--the lights, the talk, thewarmth within and without. The drink-thirst was upon her at thismoment. It had driven her down to the village that afternoon at themoment of John's arrival. But she had no money. She had not dared tounlock the cupboard again, and she could only wander up and down thebit of dark road beyond the Spotted Deer, suffering and craving. Well, it was all done--all done!

She had come up without her candle, and the only light in the room wasa cold glimmer from the snow outside. But she must find a light, forshe must write a letter. By much groping, she found some matches, andthen lit one after another while she searched in her untidy drawers foran ink-bottle and a pen she knew must be there. 

She found them, and with infinite difficulty--holding match after matchin her left hand--she scrawled a few blotted lines on a torn piece ofpaper. She was a poor scholar, and the toil was great. When it wasdone, she propped the paper up against the looking-glass. 

Then she felt for her dress, and deliberately put it on again, in thedark, though her hands were so numb with cold that she could scarcelyhook the fastenings. Her teeth chattered as she threw her old shawlround her. 

Stooping down, she took off her boots, and, pushing the bolt of her owndoor back as noiselessly as possible, she crept down the stairs. Asshe neared the lower door, the sound of two or three loud breathingscaught her ear. 

Her heart contracted with an awful sense of loneliness. Her husbandslept--her children slept--while she----

Then the wave of a strange, a just passion mounted within her. Shestepped into the kitchen, and, walking up to her husband's chair, shestood still a moment looking at him. The lamp was dying away, but shecould still see him plainly. She held herself steadily erect; a frownwas on her brow, a flame in her eyes. 

"Well, good-bye, Isaac, " she said, in a low but firm voice. 

Then she walked to the back door and opened it, taking no heed ofnoise; the latch fell heavily, the hinges creaked. 

"Isaac!" she cried, her tones loud and ringing, "_Isaac!_"

There was a sudden sound in the kitchen. She slipped through the door, and ran along the snow-covered garden. 

Isaac, roused by her call from the deep trance of exhaustion which onlya few minutes before had fallen upon his misery, stood up, felt theblast rushing in through the open door at the back, and ran blindly. 

The door had swung to again. He clutched it open; in the dim, weirdlight he saw a dark figure stoop over the well; he heard somethingflung aside, which fell upon the snow with a thud; then the figuresprang upon the coping of the well. 

He ran with all his speed, his face beaten by the wind and sleet. Buthe was too late. A sharp cry pierced the night. As he reached thewell, and hung over it, he heard, or thought he heard, a groan, abeating of the water--then no more. 

Isaac's shouts for help attracted the notice of a neighbour who wassitting up with her daughter and a new-born child. She roused herson-in-law and his boy, and, through them, a score of others, deepnight though it was. 

Watson was among the first of those who gathered round the well. Heand others lowered Isaac with ropes into its icy depths, and drew himup again, while the snow beat upon them all--the straining men--the twodripping shapes emerging from the earth. A murmur of horror greetedthe first sight of that marred face on Isaac's arm, as the lanternsfell upon it. For there was a gash above the eye, caused by aprojection in the hard chalk side of the well, which of itself spokedeath. 

Isaac carried her in, and laid her down before the still glowinghearth. A shudder ran through him as he knelt, bending over her. Thenew wound had effaced all the traces of Timothy's blow. How long wasit since she had stood there before him pointing to it? The featureswere already rigid. No one felt the smallest hope. Yet, with thatfutile tenderness all can show to the dead, everything was tried. MaryAnne Waller came--white and speechless--and her deft, gentle hands didwhatever the village doctor told her. And there were many other women, too, who did their best. Some of them, had Bessie dared to live, wouldhave helped with all their might to fill her cup of punishment to thebrim. Now that she had thrown herself on death as her only friend, they were dissolved in pity. 

Everything failed. Bessie had meant to die, and she had not missed heraim. There came a moment when the doctor, laying his ear for the lasttime to her cold breast, raised himself to bid the useless effort cease. 

"Send them all away, " he said to the little widow, "and you stay. "

Watson helped to clear the room, then he and Isaac carried the deadwoman upstairs. An old man followed them, a bent and broken being, whodragged himself up the steps with his stick; Watson out of compassioncame back to help him. 

"John--yer'd better go home, an' to yer bed--yer can't do no good. "

"I'll wait for Mary Anne, " said John, in a shaking whisper--"I'll waitfor Mary Anne. "

And he stood at the doorway, leaning on his stick; his weak andreddened eyes fixed on his cousin, his mouth open feebly. 

But Mary Anne, weeping, beckoned to another woman who had come up withthe little procession, and they began their last offices. 

"Let us go, " said the doctor kindly, his hand on Isaac's shoulder, "till they have done. "

At that moment Watson, throwing a last professional glance round theroom, perceived the piece of torn paper propped against the glass. Ah!there was the letter. There was always a letter. 

He walked forward, glanced at it, and handed it to Isaac. Isaac drewhis hand across his brow in bewilderment, then seemed to recognise thehandwriting, and thrust it into his pocket without a word. Watsontouched his arm. "Don't you destroy it, " he said in warning; "it'll beasked for at the inquest. "

The men descended. Watson and the doctor departed. John and Isaacwere left alone in the kitchen. Isaac hung over the fire, which hadbeen piled up in the hope of restoring warmth to the drowned woman. Suddenly he took out the letter and, bending his head to the blaze, began to read it. 

"Isaac, yer a cruel husband to me, an' there's no way fer me but theway I'm goin'. I didn't mean no 'arm, not at first, but there, wot'sthe good of talkin'? I can't bear the way as you speaks to me an'looks at me, an' I'll never go to prison--no, never. It's orful--ferthe children ull 'ave no mother, an' I don't know however Arthur 'ullmanage. But yer woodent shew me no mercy, an' I can't think ofanythin' different. I did love yer an' the childer, but the drink gotholt of me. Yer mus' see as Arthur is rapped up, an' Edie's eyes 'ull'ave to be seen to now an' agen. I'm sorry, but there's nothin' else. I wud like yer to kiss me onst, when they bring me in, and jes say, Bessie, I forgive yer. It won't do yer no 'arm, an' p'raps I may 'earit without your knowin'. So good-bye, Isaac, from yur lovin' wife, Bessie. . . . "

As he read it, the man's fixed pallor and iron calm gave way. He leantagainst the mantelpiece, shaken at last with the sobs of a human and ahelpless remorse. 

John, from his seat on the settle a few yards away, looked at Isaacmiserably. His lips opened now and then as though to speak, thenclosed again. His brain could form no distinct image. He wasencompassed by a general sense of desolation, springing from the lossof his money, which was pierced every now and then by a strange senseof guilt. It seemed to have something to do with Bessie, this last, though what he could not have told. 

So they sat, till Mary Anne's voice called "Isaac" from the top of thestairs. 

Isaac stood up, drew one deep breath, controlled himself, and went, John following. 

Mary Anne held the bedroom door open for them, and the two men entered, treading softly. 

The women stood on either hand crying. They had clothed the dead inwhite and crossed her hands upon her breast. A linen covering had beenpassed, nun-like, round the head and chin. The wound was hidden andthe face lay framed in an oval of pure white, which gave it a strangeseverity. 

Isaac bent over her. Was this _Bessie_--Bessie, the human, faulty, chattering creature--whom he, her natural master, had been free toscold or caress at will? At bottom he had always been conscious inregard to her of a silent but immeasurable superiority, whether as amere man to mere woman, or as the Christian to the sinner. 

Now--he dared scarcely touch her. As she lay in this new-founddignity, the proud peace of her look intimidated, accused him--wouldalways accuse him till he too rested as she rested now, clad for theend. Yet she had bade him kiss her--and he obeyed her--groaning withinhimself, incapable altogether, out of sheer abasement, of saying thosewords she had asked of him. 

Then he sat down beside her, motionless. John tried once or twice tospeak to him, but Isaac shook his head impatiently. At last the merepresence of Bolderfield in the room seemed to anger him. He threw theold man such dark and restless looks that Mary Anne perceived them, and, with instinctive understanding, persuaded John to go. 

She, however, must needs go with him, and she went. The other womanstayed. Every now and then she looked furtively at Isaac. 

"If some one don't look arter 'im, " she said to herself, "'ee'll go ashis father and his brothers went afore him. 'Ee's got the look on itawready. Wheniver it's light I'll go fetch Muster Drew. "

With the first rays of the morning Bolderfield got up from the bed inMary Anne's cottage, where she had placed him a couple of hours before, imploring him to lie still and rest himself. He slipped on his coat, the only garment he had taken off, and, taking his stick, he crept downto the cottage door. Mary Anne, who had gone out to fetch some bread, had left it ajar. He opened it and stood on the threshold, looking out. 

The storm of the night was over, and already a milder breeze wasbeginning to melt the newly-fallen snow. The sun was strikingcheerfully from the hill behind him upon the glistening surfaces of thedistant fields; the old labourer felt a hint of spring in the air. Itbrought with it a hundred vague associations, and filled him with aboundless despair. What would become of him now--penniless and old andfeeble? The horror of Bessie's death no longer stood between him andhis own pain, and would soon even cease to protect her from his hatred. 

Mary Anne came back along the lane, carrying a jug and a loaf. Herlittle face was all blanched and drawn with weariness, yet, when shesaw him, her look kindled. She ran up to him. 

"What did yer come down for, John? I'd ha' taken yer yer breakfast inyer bed. "

He looked at her, then at the food. His eyes filled with tears. 

"I can't pay yer for it, " he said, pointing with his stick. "I can'tpay yer for it. "

Mary Anne led him in, scolding and coaxing him with her gentle, trembling voice. She made him sit down while she blew up the fire; shefed and tended him. When she had forced him to eat something, she camebehind him and laid her hand on his shoulder. 

"John, " she said, clearing her throat. "John, yer shan't want whileI'm livin'. I promised Eliza I wouldn't forget yer, and I won't. Ican work yet--there's plenty o' people want me to work for 'em--an'maybe, when yer get over this, you'll work a bit too now and again. We'll hold together, John--anyways. While I live and keep my 'elth yershan't want. An' yer'll forgive Bessie"--she broke into suddensobbing. "Oh! I'll never 'ear a crule word about Bessie in my 'ouse, _never_!"

John put his arms on the table and hid his face upon them. He couldnot speak of forgiveness, nor could he thank her for her promise. Hischief feeling was an intense wish to sleep; but, as Mary Anne dried hertears and began to go about her household work, the sound of her step, the sense of her loving presence near him, began, for the first time, to relax the aching grip upon his heart. He had always been weak anddependent, in spite of his thrift and his money. He would be far moreweak and dependent now and henceforward. But again, he had found awoman's tenderness to lean upon, and, as she ministered to him--thishumble, shrinking creature he had once so cordially despised--the firstdrop of balm fell upon his sore. 

Meanwhile, in another cottage a few yards away, Mr. Drew was wrestlingwith Isaac. In his own opinion, he met with small success. The manwho had refused his wife mercy shrank, with a kind of horror, fromtalking of the Divine mercy. Isaac Costrell's was a strange andgroping soul. But those misjudged him who called him a hypocrite. 

Yet in truth, during the years that followed, whenever he was not underthe influence of recurrent attacks of melancholia, Isaac did againderive much comfort from the aspirations and self-abasements ofreligion. No human life would be possible if there were not forces inand round man perpetually tending to repair the wounds and breachesthat he himself makes. Misery provokes pity; despair throws itself ona Divine tenderness. And for those who have the "grace" of faith, inthe broken and imperfect action of these healing powers upon thisvarious world--in the love of the merciful for the unhappy, in thetremulous, yet undying, hope that pierces even sin and remorse with thevision of some ultimate salvation from the self that breeds them--inthese powers there speaks the only voice which can make us patientunder the tragedies of human fate, whether these tragedies be "thefalls of princes" or such meaner, narrower pains as brought poor BessieCostrell to her end.