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at every sound in the process, at the thud the old wooden trunk made on the floor of the cupboard as its supporter was withdrawn, at the rustle of her own dress.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 Bolderfield’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.