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

Thirty-six pounds on the one side, not much more than thirty shillings
on the 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 to
change so much of the silver, instead of sticking to the gold! Yet she
had thought the gold would be noticed more.

When was old John coming back? He had written once from Frampton to say
that he was 'laid up bad with the rheumatics,' and was probably going
into the Frampton Infirmary. That was in November. Since then nothing
had been heard of him. John was no scholar. What if he died without
coming back? There would be no trouble then, except--except with Isaac.

Her mind suddenly filled with wild visions--of herself marched through
the village by Watson, as she had once seen him march a poacher who had
mauled one of Mr. Forrest's keepers--of the towering walls of Frampton
Gaol--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 had
been that cross and glum all these last weeks--never a bit of talk
hardly--always snapping at her and the children. Yet he had never said a
word to her about the drink--nor about the things she had bought. As to
the 'things' and the bills, she believed that he knew nothing--had
noticed nothing. At home he was always smoking, sitting silent, with dim
eyes, like a man in a dream--or reading his father's old books, 'good
books,' which filled Bessie with a sense of dreariness unspeakable--or
pondering his weekly paper.

But she believed he had begun to notice the drink. Drinking was
universal in Clinton, though there was not much drunkenness.
Teetotallers were unknown, and Isaac himself drank his beer freely, and
a glass of spirits, like anybody else on occasion. She had been used for
years to fetch his beer from the public, and she had been careful. But
there were