room. The
light of Troy's lantern in the churchyard was noticed about ten
o'clock by the maid-servant, who casually glanced from the window in
that direction whilst taking her supper, and she called Bathsheba's
attention to it. They looked curiously at the phenomenon for a time,
until Liddy was sent to bed.

Bathsheba did not sleep very heavily that night. When her attendant
was unconscious and softly breathing in the next room, the mistress
of the house was still looking out of the window at the faint gleam
spreading from among the trees--not in a steady shine, but blinking
like a revolving coast-light, though this appearance failed to
suggest to her that a person was passing and repassing in front
of it. Bathsheba sat here till it began to rain, and the light
vanished, when she withdrew to lie restlessly in her bed and re-enact
in a worn mind the lurid scene of yesternight.

Almost before the first faint sign of dawn appeared she arose again,
and opened the window to obtain a full breathing of the new morning
air, the panes being now wet with trembling tears left by the night
rain, each one rounded with a pale lustre caught from primrose-hued
slashes through a cloud low down in the awakening sky. From the
trees came the sound of steady dripping upon the drifted leaves under
them, and from the direction of the church she could hear another
noise--peculiar, and not intermittent like the rest, the purl of
water falling into a pool.

Liddy knocked at eight o'clock, and Bathsheba un-locked the door.

"What a heavy rain we've had in the night, ma'am!" said Liddy, when
her inquiries about breakfast had been made.

"Yes, very heavy."

"Did you hear the strange noise from the churchyard?"

"I heard one strange noise. I've been thinking it must have been the
water from the tower spouts."

"Well, that's what the shepherd was saying, ma'am. He's now gone on
to see."

"Oh! Gabriel has been here this morning!"

"Only just looked in in passing--quite in his old way, which I
thought he had left off lately. But the tower spouts used to spatter
on the stones, and we are puzzled, for this was like the boiling of a
pot."

Not being able to read, think, or work, Bathsheba asked Liddy to stay
and breakfast with her. The tongue of the more childish woman still
ran upon recent events. "Are you going across to the church, ma'am?"
she asked.

"Not that I know of," said Bathsheba.

"I thought you might like to go a