"David Lynn died in that chair!" said the old woman. "I thought I saw him just now warming his feet. He always had cold feet. 'David,' I used to say to him, 'we'll never ken when you're dead, you that's already so cold about the legs.'" "You've had a nice sleep, great-granny. Do you feel better?" "Better! I's well." She stretched out a lean hand, and drew the girl nearer to her. "Someone's watching us from the corner," she whispered. "That's the clock." "Oh, aye, the clock, the moony-faced critter! Many's the time it's given me the creeps. What time is it?" "Four." "Four in the morning! I hear a queer sound in the room, lass." "It's only the rain coming down and the beck running. There's been a thaw through the night." "Ah, that's the reason I slept so long! I's been wondering for weeks back what it was I missed. When I wakened whiles I thought I was dead, the place felt so quiet-like." She listened with a smile on her drawn face. Then she asked once more if they were alone. "Not a soul is near," Barbara reassured her. Mistress Lynn leaned over the edge of the bed, and tried to insert the key in the lock of the bridewain. But she could not manage it, and fell back. "Open it," she said. The girl took the key, and opened the cupboard. She knew what the old woman wanted and, bringing out the money-bags, she laid them in her lap. The trembling hands closed over them, and for a while she lay and did not speak. Barbara stood silently by, till a sudden suspicious look from the sunken eyes made her move away to tidy up her own disordered couch. She shook the rug, hung it over the back of the settle, and smoothed the cushion upon which her head had lain. Then a call brought her back to the four-poster. The old woman was plucking at the leather thongs to untie them. Barbara was stirred at this strange action of the dying woman, whose thoughts should have been elsewhere than lingering round the earthly treasures which moth and rust corrupt. Yet the action did not surprise her. For she could understand the heart, which would cling to its idol to the end. She had inherited the same intensity of character. And to save herself from becoming worse than a miser gloating over his gold, she had had to cut off her right hand, and pluck out her right eye. For a lawless heart was worse than a gluttonous one, however gorgeously it might array itself in the garments of love. Barbara untied the bags, which the useless old fingers were fumbling at, and poured out their contents upon the bed, where they lay--a heap of silver and gold coins, glistening in the light of the candle. Mistress Lynn handled the pile lingeringly, loath to let a coin go when she had grasped it, and she seemed to draw energy out of its cold touch.