"What do 'ee mean?" asked Willie, thinking the shock had turned her brain. "The mask!" replied Vashti, "the mask!" Then, kneeling by the still body, they talked in whispers--she unfolding her plan--he recoiling from it, weakly protesting, and then giving way. They were to take the dead man between them to the disused mine shaft and throw him down, then Willie was to wear the black mask, and take Glasson's place, until they could sail for America together. Like all simple plans, it had a touch of genius. Willie's constant talk of emigrating, his oft-heard boasts of slipping away in the night and not coming back till he had made a fortune, would all help to cover up his disappearance. And who was to connect it with Vashti and her silent, eccentric, black-masked husband--who would speak to him or her on the subject? And if they did--she could always invent a plausible answer, while he was safeguarded by the fact that the strongest point of likeness between the two men was their voices. The most dissimilar thing about them had been their faces. "I won't wear his mask," said Willie shuddering; "I couldn't put 'en against me. You must make me another." "I'll make 'en now," said Vashti. She rose to her feet, and setting the candle on the seat of a chair, looked about her. "You must put the room to rights," she commanded. "Make 'en look as though James and I had just had our bit o' supper. Mop up the water and sweep all the broken cloam together--and--and take him to the passage-way." "You'm not going to lave me alone wi' he?" cried Willie aghast. "Edn room for me to work here. I'l be up overstairs making the mask. Keep t' curtain over the window." Upstairs, she seized scissors and hacked a square out of the front of her gown. Then she sat and sewed as she had sewed once before, when her husband had lain motionless on the bed. Every now and then came small sounds of things being moved from down below, then a heavy fall and the sound of something being dragged. "How's et goin', Willie?" she called out. "'Tes all right," he called back. "I've put 'en in passage." The moon was near setting when the mask was finished, and she went to the top of the stairs with it in her hand. "There 'tes," she whispered. "I'll drop it down. Put it in your pocket and I'll change my gown. 'Tes time we were stirrin'." The mask fluttered down in the darkness, and she went back to her room and changed swiftly into the old serge.