hat with a bunch of poppies in it was lying about the floor; and under
the iron beds could be seen a confusion of dusty boots, new and old. The
children were naturally reckless like their mother, and they had been
getting used to new things. What excited them now, more than the
acquisitions themselves, was that their mother had strictly forbidden
them ever to show any of their new clothes to their father. If they did,
she would beat them well, she said. That they understood; and life was
thereby enriched, not only by new clothes but by a number of new
emotions and terrors.

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,
shaky hand, and kissed them all, especially Arthur. Then she went out
and closed 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 with
heavy 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, opening
into the kitchen. It had no key or she would have locked it; and in her
agitation, her state of clouded brain, she forgot the outer door
altogether. Hurrying up again, she sat down on the topmost step, putting
her candle on the boards beside her. The cupboard at the stair-head
where 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 and
bemoan herself. Deep in her woman's being great floods of tears were
rising, and would fain have spent themselves. But she fought them down,
rapidly passing instead into a state of cold terror--terror of Isaac's
step--terror of discovery--of the man in the public-house.

There was a mousehole in the skirting of the stairs close to the
cupboard. She slipped in a finger, felt along an empty space behind, and
drew 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 haste
Bessie dragged the treasure-box from under the other, starting at every
sound in the process, at the thud the old wooden trunk made on the floor
of the cupboard as its supporter was withdrawn, at the rustle of her own
dress. All the boldness she had shown at the 'Spotted Deer' had
vanished. She was now the mere trembling and guilty woman.

The lock on Bolderfie