spend, so delightful to promise, and so unreasonably, so unjustly
difficult, to pay?

She began to be mortally afraid of Isaac--of the effect of disclosures.
One night she was alone in the cottage, almost beside herself under the
pressure of one or two claims she could not meet--one claim especially,
that of a little jeweller, from whom she had bought a gold ring and a
brooch at Frampton--when the thought of John's hoard swept upon her--
clutched her like something living and tyrannical, not to be shaken off.
It struck her all in an instant that there was another cupboard in the
little parlour, exactly like that on the stairs. The lower cupboard had
a key--what if it fitted?

The Devil must have been eager and active that night, for the key turned
in the lock with a smoothness that made honesty impossible, almost
foolish. And the old, weak lock on the box itself--why, a chisel had
soon made an end of that! Only five minutes--it had been so quick--there
had been no trouble. God had made no sign at all.

Since! All the village smiles--the village flatteries recovered--an orgy
of power and pleasure--new passions and excitements--above all, the
rising passion of drink, sweeping in storms through a weak nature that
alternately opened to them and shuddered at them. And through everything
the steadily dribbling away of the hoard--the astonishing ease and
rapidity with which the coins--gold or silver--had flowed through her
hands! How could one spend so much in meat and dress, in beer and gin,
in giving other people beer and gin? How was it possible? She sat lost
in miserable thoughts, a mist round her....

'Wal I niver!' said a low, astonished voice at the foot of the stairs.