sunlight, which
streamed in upon his half-closed eyes, could now disturb them no more.
Margaret gently closed them and laid the body on its little bed in the
corner, straightening and covering the limbs before she turned away.

She then gently approached the bed, and took her ring into a hand which
trembled little less than the sick man's own. She spoke calmly,
however. She strove earnestly to learn something of the facts: she
tried to understand the mutterings amidst which only a word here and
there sounded like speech. She thought, from the earnestness with which
Platt seized and pressed her hand, that he was seeking pardon from her;
and she spoke as if it were so. It grew very distressing--the
earnestness of the man, and the uncertainty whether his mind was
wandering or not. She wished the old woman would come back. She went
to the door to look for her. The old woman was coming down the lane.
Margaret put on her ring, and drew on her gloves, and determined to say
nothing about it at present.

"Mr Platt has been talking almost ever since you went," said Margaret;
"and I can make out nothing that he says. Do try if you can understand
him. I am sure there is something he wishes me to hear. There is no
time to lose, I am afraid. Do try."

The woman coaxed him to lie down, and then turning round, said she
thought he wanted to know what o'clock it was.

"Is that all? Tell him that the sun is now setting. But if you have a
watch, that will show more exactly. Are you sure you have no watch in
the house?"

The old woman looked suspiciously at her, and asked her what made her
suppose that poor folks had watches, when some gentlefolks had none?
Margaret inquired whether a watch was not a possession handed down from
father to son, and sometimes found in the poorest cottages. She
believed she had seen such at Deerbrook. The old woman replied by
saying, she believed Margaret might have understood some few things
among the many the poor sick creature had been saying. Not one,
Margaret declared; but it was so plain that she was not believed, that
she had little doubt of Hester's watch having been harboured in this
very house, if it was not there still.

The poor boy, who had had little care from his natural guardians while
alive from the hour of his being doomed by the fortune-teller, was now
loudly mourned as dead. Yet the mourning was strangely mixed with
exultation at the fortune-teller having been right