Four times over, eight times over, times uncounted, had the chimes rung out the quarters, and stroke by stroke the hours were told, vibrating heavily through the church, and still Jared sat in the organ-loft in his old position. He was alone, for no Ichabod had come to rattle the handle and kick the big oaken door. But Jared thought not of cold or gloom, for his soul was dead within him as he mourned, in the sadness of his heart, for the poverty and misery which clung to him, and his inability to ward them off. He could tell himself that he had struggled manfully, hiding his sorrows from those who were dear to him; but now he felt that he was beaten, conquered--that the hard fight had gone against him, and that he must give up. But where had that money gone? Who had taken it? Had they still watched and tried to find the thief, or rested satisfied with their discovery? He knew not, though strenuous efforts had been made by more than one; but, excepting in a single case, the money marked and left in the boxes had not been taken--a fact which vicar and churchwarden interpreted to mean that the guilty party was found. They had now therefore ceased watching, believing that the treasure was no longer interfered with; though had they once more examined the money, they would have found that two marked half-crowns and a florin had been extracted, as if the thief had seized his last chance of appropriating a portion of the little store. "What will become of me? Where are we to go?" muttered Jared; and then he wrung his hands, and pressed them to his aching head. "And if they prosecute, what then?" Jared Pellet shivered as he asked himself the question, while in fancy he could see reflected in the mirror before him every horror with which for days past he had been torturing himself, beginning with the bar of a police court, and ending with masked convicts in prison yards, toiling at some bitter task, and, like him, dreaming--dreams within dreams--of wives and children shivering at a workhouse door. He knew that he was making the worst of it, but he excused himself upon the plea that it was the first time that he had done so, and that never until now had he given up, for he was very miserable, and he again wrung his hands until the bones cracked. "What--what shall I do?" groaned the wretched man. "The cheque will not come now; and if they should have sent to arrest me now upon this last day!" And then again in that reflector he conjured up before him the summons at his own door, the eager step of Patty, expecting a messenger from the vicar, and then the poor girl's horror to find the police were upon her father's track. He could see it all plainly enough in that old mirror, and he covered his face with his hands, and groaned again--"What shall I do? What shall I do?" in a helpless, childish fashion.