Daft Billy led me to the door of Mother Sykes's cottage. My heart thumped in my breast, not, be sure, because I knew that lowly abode held the old dame, but because there dwelt my Miriam. I knocked the snow off my clogs against the lintel of the door, and, obedient to a motion of my taciturn guide, pulled the string that lifted the sneck, and entered. The low room was dimly lighted by a farthing dip, and the glow from a peat fire. Miriam was seated by the fire on a rude rush-bottomed chair. She rose as I paused just within the chamber, and placed her finger on her lips, glancing towards a pallet on which, as my eyes became accustomed to the dim light, I saw lay the eerie being whose summons had brought me to that uncanny spot at that ghostly hour. "Come to the fire and warm yourself," whispered Miriam "I'm noan asleep; yo' needn't think it," came in a feeble, gasping voice from the bed. "Don't come near me till you're warm, Abel Holmes, I can't abear cold. Wheer's Ephraim?" I jumped in my skin when from the gloom of the remotest corner of the room Ephraim's voice said surlily, "Aw'm here, trying to get a wink o' sleep, for aw'n had none this three neets back an more. What do yo' want nah? Of all the women i' this world for whimsies, aw'll back yo' again creation. There's no more brandy, if that's what yo're hankerin' for, an' it's a sore neet an' an ungain hour to go seekin' it." "Aw reckon yo'n supped it, then. Yo'n swum i' liquor sin' aw were bedridden, yo' unnat'ral crittor. But tha'rt off thi horse this time. Aw want nother thee nor thi liquor. Aw want to talk to Abel Holmes." "Weel, get agate. He's theer, isn't he?" "Aye, but aw want thee aat o' th' gate first. Just thee mak' thissen scarce for th' neist hour or two." "An' wheer should aw go at this time o' neet an' i' this mak' o' weather?" "Yo' can go to--for owt aw care," said the beldam, naming a very warm spot indeed, and displaying a quite remarkable vigour for one whom I had expected to find at death's door. Ephraim gave me an evil look that I was by no means conscious of deserving from one I had not so long ago rescued from durance vile, tossed a rat-skin cap on to his head, and flung himself out of the room. The sick woman listened intently to the sound of his footsteps crunching through the snow. Then she roused herself with difficulty upon one poor, withered arm, and groping under her pillow drew thence, to my consternation, the ring I had given to Miriam. I glanced reproachfully at my sweet one, and she hung her head and would not meet my eyes. "Wheer did yo' get this trinkum, Abel Holmes th' parson's son at Powl Moor. Wheer did your father's son come by this? Answer me truly, for there's more hangs by what yo' tell me nor either yo' nor that hussy theer know on. Tell me truly, or may the curse o' the God o' Abraham an' Jacob rest on both on yo', and yo'r leet o' love."