’Now leave them alone. I’ve something better to show you. Men reckon themselves clever, but women beat them in cleverness. Go to the fire-place. Kneel at it, and put your hand up on the left side, thrust in your arm full length and turn the hand round.’ ’I shall dirty myself. I shall get a black hand.’ ’Of course you will. That is how I found it out. Don’t be afraid of a little soot. There is a sort of oven at the side. This room were not always a parlour, I reckon; there were a large open fire-place in it, and when the grate was put in it left the space behind not at all, or only half, filled in—leastways, the road to the oven door was not blocked. Have you found it?’ ’Yes,’ answered Charles. ’I have my hand in something.’ ’And something in your hand, eh?’ ’Yes, a box, a largish box.’ He drew forth a tin ease, very heavy, with a handle at the top. It was locked with a letter padlock. ’Into that box the master puts all his savings. I reckon there be hundreds of pounds stowed away there, may be thousands. The master himself don’t know how much. He’s too afeared of being seen or heard counting it. When he has money he takes out the box, opens it, and puts in the gold, only gold and paper, no silver. Banks break. He will have none of them, but this old cloam oven he thinks is secure. He may be mistaken.’ ’How did you find this out?’ ’By his black hand. Whenever he had sold bullocks or sheep, and I knew he had received money, so sure was he to come in here with a white hand and come out with one that was black, that is how I found it. I know more. I know the word that will open the box.’ ’How did you find that out?’ ’The master was himself afraid of forgetting it, and I chanced to see in the first leaf of his Bible here in pencil the reference Gen. xxxvi. 23. One day I chanced to look out the passage, and it was this: "The children of Shobal were these: Alvan, and Manahath, and Ebal, Shepho, and Onam." I thought a man must have a bad conscience to find comfort in such a passage as that. And what do y’ think? I found the same reference in his pocket-book. Then I knew it must mean something I didn’t see the end of. And one day I were full o’ light, like a lantern. I saw it all. Do y’ see, this new padlock makes only four letter words, and in that verse there are two words of four letters, and I found as how the master changed about. One year he took Ebal and next year Onam. It be the turn o’ Ebal now.’ Charles felt the weight of the case and turned the padlock towards him. ’Lord!’ exclaimed Mrs. Veale, ’what if the master have got his thousand or two there! It’s nothing to what might be yours if you had Coombe Park.’ Suddenly both started. Langford’s voice was heard outside. Charles hastily replaced the case where he had found it, and slipped out of the room with Mrs. Veale, who held him and drew him after her, her nervous fingers playing on his arm-bone as on a pipe.