Adrian understood, and fumbled in his pocket.  Meg stretched out her hand to receive the honorarium.  It was a long, skinny hand, with long, skinny fingers, but there was this peculiarity about it, that one of these fingers chanced to be missing.  She saw his eyes fixed upon the gap, and rushed into an explanation.

“I have met with an accident,” Meg explained.  “In cutting up a pig the chopper caught this finger and severed it.”

“Did you wear a ring on it?” asked Adrian.

“Yes,” she replied, with sombre fury.

“How very strange!” ejaculated Adrian.

“Why?”

“Because I have seen a finger, a woman’s long finger with a gold ring on it, that might have come off your hand.  I suppose the pork-butcher picked it up for a keepsake.”

“May be, Heer Adrian, but where is it now?”

“Oh! it is, or was, in a bottle of spirits tied by a thread to the cork.”

Meg’s evil face contorted itself.  “Get me that bottle,” she said hoarsely.  “Look you, Heer Adrian, I am doing much for you, do this for me.”

“What do you want it for?”

“To give it Christian burial,” she replied sourly.  “It is not fitting or lucky that a person’s finger should stand about in a bottle like a caul or a lizard.  Get it, I say get it—­I ask no question where—­or, young man, you will have little help in your love affairs from me.”

“Do you wish the dagger hilt also?” he asked mischievously.

She looked at him out of the corners of her black eyes.  This Adrian knew too much.

“I want the finger and the ring on it which I lost in chopping up the pig.”

“Perhaps, mother, you would like the pig, too.  Are you not making a mistake?  Weren’t you trying to cut his throat, and didn’t he bite off the finger?”

“If I want the pig, I’ll search his stye.  You bring that bottle, or——­”

She did not finish her sentence, for the door opened, and through it came the sage.

“Quarrelling,” he said in a tone of reproof.  “What about?  Let me guess,” and he passed his hand over his shadowed brow.  “Ah!  I see, there is a finger in it, a finger of fate?  No, not that,” and, moved by a fresh inspiration, he grasped Meg’s hand, and added, “Now I have it.  Bring it back, friend Adrian, bring it back; a dead finger is most unlucky to all save its owner.  As a favour to me.”

“Very well,” said Adrian.

“My gifts grow,” mused the master.  “I have a vision of this honest hand and of a great sword—­but, there, it is not worth while, too small a matter.  Leave us, mother.  It shall be returned, my word on it.  Yes, gold ring and all.  And now, young friend, let us talk.  You have the philtre?  Well, I can promise you that it is a good one, it would almost bring Galatea from her marble.  Pygmalion must have known that secret.  But tell me something of your life, your daily thoughts and daily deeds, for when I give my friendship I love to live in the life of my friends.”