But what was this?  Gavin had not to ask himself the question.  The gypsy’s cloak was lying neatly folded at the other end of the seat.  Why had the woman not taken it with her?  Hardly had he put this question when another stood in front of it.  What was to be done with the cloak?  He dared not leave it there for Jean to discover.  He could not take it into the manse in daylight.  Beneath the seat was a tool-chest without a lid, and into this he crammed the cloak.  Then, having turned the box face downwards, he went about his duties.  But many a time during the day he shivered to the marrow, reflecting suddenly that at this very moment Jean might be carrying the accursed thing (at arms’ length, like a dog in disgrace) to his mother.

Now let those who think that Gavin has not yet paid toll for taking the road with the Egyptian, follow the adventures of the cloak.  Shortly after gloaming fell that night Jean encountered her master in the lobby of the manse.  He was carrying something, and when he saw her he slipped it behind his back.  Had he passed her openly she would have suspected nothing, but this made her look at him.

“Why do you stare so, Jean?” Gavin asked, conscience-stricken, and he stood with his back to the wall until she had retired in bewilderment.

“I have noticed her watching me sharply all day,” he said to himself, though it was only he who had been watching her.

Gavin carried the cloak to his bed-room, thinking to lock it away in his chest, but it looked so wicked lying there that he seemed to see it after the lid was shut.

The garret was the best place for it.  He took it out of the chest and was opening his door gently, when there was Jean again.  She had been employed very innocently in his mother’s room, but he said tartly—­

“Jean, I really cannot have this,” which sent Jean to the kitchen with her apron at her eyes.

Gavin stowed the cloak beneath the garret bed, and an hour afterwards was engaged on his sermon, when he distinctly heard some one in the garret.  He ran up the ladder with a terrible brow for Jean, but it was not Jean; it was Margaret.

“Mother,” he said in alarm, “what are you doing here?”

“I am only tidying up the garret, Gavin.”

“Yes, but—­it is too cold for you.  Did Jean—­did Jean ask you to come up here?”

“Jean?  She knows her place better.”

Gavin took Margaret down to the parlour, but his confidence in the garret had gone.  He stole up the ladder again, dragged the cloak from its lurking place, and took it into the garden.  He very nearly met Jean in the lobby again, but hearing him coming she fled precipitately, which he thought very suspicious.

In the garden he dug a hole, and there buried the cloak, but even now he was not done with it.  He was wakened early by a noise of scraping in the garden, and his first thought was “Jean!” But peering from the window, he saw that the resurrectionist was a dog which already had its teeth in the cloak.