One night she was alone in the cottage, almost beside herself under the
pressure 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 a
brooch at Frampton--when the thought of John's hoard swept upon
her--clutched her like something living and tyrannical, not to be shaken
off.

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

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

Since! All the village smiles--the village flatteries recovered--an
orgie of power and pleasure--new passions and excitements--above all, the
rising passion of drink, sweeping in storms through a weak nature that
alternately opened to them and shuddered at them. And through everything
the steadily dribbling away of the hoard--the astonishing ease and
rapidity with which the coins--gold or silver--had flowed through her
hands! 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 lost
in 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--the
vicious, drunken face of her husband's eldest son, Timothy Costrell.

The man below cast one more look of amazement at the woman standing on
the top stair, at the candle behind her, at the open box. Then an idea
struck 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 asked
fiercely, 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 the
candle, and by good fortune put it out, or she would have been in a
blaze. Now there was only the light from the paraffin lamp in the
kitchen below striking upwa