“Well, I’m sure!”

“Hold your blasted tongue!” roared William.  Mrs. Transom collapsed.

“Give me the candle,” ’Lizabeth commanded.  “Look here—­”

She held the corner of the will to the flame, and watched it run up at the edge and wrap the whole in fire.  The paper dropped from her hand to the bare boards, and with a dying flicker was consumed.  The charred flakes drifted idly across the floor, stopped, and drifted again.  In dead silence she looked up.

Mrs. Transom’s watery eyes were open to their fullest.  ’Lizabeth turned to William and found him regarding her with a curious frown.

“Do you know what you’ve done?” he asked hoarsely.

’Lizabeth laughed a trifle wildly.

“I reckon I’ve made reparation.”

“There was no call—­” began William.

“You fool—­’twas to myself! An’ now,” she added quietly, “I’ll pick up my things and tramp down to Hooper’s Farm; they’ll give me a place, I know, an’ be glad o’ the chance.  They’ll be sittin’ up to-night, bein’ Christmas time.  Good-night, William!”

She moved to go; but, recollecting herself, turned at the door, and, stepping up to the bed, bent and kissed the dead man’s forehead.  Then she was gone.

It was the woman who broke the silence that followed with a base speech.

“Well!  To think she’d lose her head like that when she found you wasn’t to be had!”

“Shut up!” said William savagely; “an’ listen to this:  If you was to die to-night I’d marry ’Lizabeth next week.”

Time passed.  The old man was buried, and Mr. and Mrs. Transom took possession at Compton Burrows and reigned in his stead.  ’Lizabeth dwelt a mile or so down the valley with the Hoopers, who, as she had said, were thankful enough to get her services, for Mrs. Hooper was well up in years, and gladly resigned the dairy work to a girl who, as she told her husband, was of good haveage, and worth her keep a dozen times over.  So ’Lizabeth had settled down in her new home, and closed her heart and shut its clasps tight.

She never met William to speak to.  Now and then she caught sight of him as he rode past on horseback, on his way to market or to the “Compton Arms,” where he spent more time and money than was good for him.  He had bought himself out of the army, of course; but he retained his barrack tales and his air of having seen life.  These, backed up with a baritone voice and a largehandedness in standing treat, made him popular in the bar parlour.  Meanwhile, Mrs. Transom, up at Compton Burrows—­perhaps because she missed her “theayters”—­sickened and began to pine; and one January afternoon, little more than a year after the home-coming, ’Lizabeth, standing in the dairy by her cream-pans, heard that she was dead.

“Poor soul,” she said; “but she looked a sickly one.”  That was all.  She herself wondered that the news should affect her so little.