First Lovey ate a loaf of bread from her mouldering stores; then she sat down by the stone table in the midst of the grotto, rested her head on her hand and considered the position. The future bristled with dangers and difficulties; turning from it, therefore, she rose, lighted a candle and drew forth her treasures. The money she had not fingered for three weeks, and now she counted it, and the steady stream, sliding through her fingers, served to soothe her. Miser-like, she kept her supreme possession to the last, and before she brought it to the light, her mouth began to water and her eyes to glow. Though now crushed by an uncontrollable weight of weariness and sleep, she prayed to her glass god and performed his familiar rite before she slumbered. From the ground at the foot of her granite altar, the old woman scratched the soil, then drew forth a metal box. It clashed as she picked it up, and Grace waking at the sound, was just about to hasten forward when she heard the old woman's voice lifted to address her deity. "Come to me, my purty blessing! To think as I haven't had a sight of 'e for nigh a month! An' the devil's luck fallen to me since I seed 'e!" The girl shrank back and watched, breathless, while Lovey drew a mass of cotton wool from her box, and then, revealing the Malherb amphora, placed it reverently on her granite table and lighted other candles around it. Now she squatted down before the vase and remained motionless, like a toad watching a fly. Here was her support and power, the spring of her existence, her sustenance, and the foundation-stone of her life. She gazed and gazed with greedy eyes; she licked her lips and nodded slowly, like a china image. The amphora, against its gloomy background, flashed in the candle-glow. Its azure splendours shone in the cavern's darkness; the acanthus leaves were touched with flickering gold, and the Cupids seemed to move and peep about behind the foliage. "Dance! dance, my naked boys!" said Lovey. "Though there's nought to dance about to-night. All lost--an' me a runaway! Where shall us go to next? Us can't live underground like a badger for ever. But I sold my cows a fortnight agone--that's something. Dance, you little devils; dance--dance!" She gloated upon her treasure and trembled with joy of possession. Presently she put out her hand gently, like a cat touching a dazed mouse. Then the fit grew upon her. With each hand in turn she stroked the amphora and twisted it round and round. Anon she lifted it and brought it close to her face; she kissed it and cuddled it against her breast, and rubbed her cheeks upon it and slavered it, as might a fond mother lust over her child. Grace Malherb heard a harsh vibration, like a tiger purring. "I've got you, my heart an' liver an' reins! I've got you, come what may, my lovely joanie! And the day I die, you'll die too; for I'll grind you to powder an' eat you--fat babbies an' all!"