A gleam of sudden hope shot into the old man’s face.  He had not thought of Saunders; but Saunders had a head; he might unravel this accursed thing.

‘Aye!’ he said, lurching forward, ’let’s find Saunders—­coom along—­ let’s find Saunders.’

Mary Anne guided him through the door, Bessie standing aside.  As the widow passed, she touched Bessie piteously.

‘O Bessie, yer didn’t do it—­say yer didn’t!’

Bessie looked at her, dry-eyed and contemptuous.  Something in the speaker’s emotion seemed to madden her.

‘Don’t yer be a fool, Mary Anne—­that’s all!’ she said scornfully, and Mary Anne fled from her.

When the door had closed upon them, Bessie came up to the fire, her teeth chattering.  She sank down in front of it, spreading out her hands to the warmth.  The children silently crowded up to her; first she pushed them away, then she caught at the child nearest to her, pressed its fair head against her, then again roughly put it aside.  She was accustomed to chatter with them, scold them, and slap them; but to-night they were uneasily dumb.  They looked at her with round eyes; and at last their looks annoyed her.  She told them to go to bed, and they slunk away, gaping at the open box on the stairs, and huddling together overhead, all on one bed, in the bitter cold, to whisper to each other.  Isaac was a stern parent; Bessie a capricious one; and the children, though they could be riotous enough by themselves, were nervous and easily cowed at home.

Bessie, left alone, sat silently over the fire, her thin lips tight-set.  She would deny everything—­everything.  Let them find out what they could.  Who could prove what was in John’s box when he left it?  Who could prove she hadn’t got those half-crowns in change somewhere?

The reflexion of the day had only filled her with a passionate and fierce regret. Why had she not followed her first impulse, and thrown it all on Timothy?—­told the story to Isaac, while she was still bleeding from his son’s violence?  It had been her only chance, and out of pure stupidness she had lost it.  To have grasped it might at least have made him take her part, if it had forced him to give up Timothy.  And who would have listened to Timothy’s tales?

She sickened at the thought of her own folly, beating her knee with her clenched fist.  For to tell the tale now would only be to make her doubly vile in Isaac’s eyes.  He would not believe her—­no one would believe her.  What motive could she plead for her twenty-four hours of silence, she knowing that John was coming back immediately?  Isaac would only hate her for throwing it on Timothy.

Then again the memory of the half-crowns, and the village talk—­and Watson—­would close upon her, putting her in a cold sweat.

When would Isaac come?  Who would tell him?  As she looked forward to the effect upon him, all her muscles stiffened.  If he drove her to it, aye, she would tell him—­she didn’t care a hap’orth, she vowed.  If he must have it, let him.  But as the name of Isaac, the thought of Isaac, hovered in her brain, she must needs brush away wild tears.  That morning, for the first time for months, he had been so kind to her and the children, so chatty and cheerful.