“You bide by the fire, John,” responded his wife.  “Nancy’s in a tantrum because I found out as she’d took that bag-money—­she’ll come in when she’s a mind.”

“The bag-money!” repeated John in a puzzled way.  “Nan take it!—­she never did, barring you give it her.”

“She did then, and bought gloves with it, to do up with six buttons, and there they be now beside you on the settle,” retorted Mrs. Forest.  John looked in the place his wife had indicated, and there, sure enough, lay the brown kid gloves.  This evidence did seem conclusive.  John shook his grey head as he held the dainty gloves across his rough palm, and presently said, “You have kept her too short, wife—­girls wants their bits of things.”  He paused and sighed heavily, and then added, “I’ll go and look for her.”

“It’s all your fault, John,” broke out his wife as he rose to go.  “You as good as told her to do it.”

“You ought to have given her some money, Eliza, and you’ve been nagging at her and driven her out this cold night; if harm comes of it—­” said John as he went out.

“Fiddlesticks about harm; what harm can come to her, I should like to know?” retorted his wife, without allowing him to complete his sentence.  Then the door closed and Eliza Forest was alone, with the ticking of the eight-day clock to bear her company.

Slowly the hand of the clock travelled on.  A clock is a weird companion—­above all, one that strikes the hour after a preliminary groaning sound as this clock did.  Mrs. Forest tried to occupy herself with the stocking she was knitting, but she was uneasy and let her work fall in her lap while she reflected to the accompaniment of that metallic “Tick-tick” of the clock.  “My mother always said that my temper would get me down and worry me,” she meditated; “and I believe it will before it’s done.”

Ten o’clock struck—­eleven o’clock, and Mrs. Forest grew really alarmed.  She rose and placed her knitting on the high chimney-piece—­she generally put it there out of the way of the cat, who played with the ball—­and opened the door and peered out into the darkness.  There was a sound of footsteps along the frozen high road.  She listened intently, but the horses began to move about in the stable close by and she could no longer hear the footsteps.

The cold wind blew right against her, chilling her through and through.  But she still stood there in the doorway.  By-and-by there were unmistakable footsteps near at hand.  A moment more and John was beside her.  He was alone.  “Wife,” he began in a hollow voice, “Nan left Miss Michin as usual; has she been home?”

“I told you she had,” gasped the mother.  “I told you she and me had had a tiff about the money.”