She laughed and nuzzled the glass, crooned to it and licked it. Then her frenzy waned; she set the treasure gently down and fell back exhausted. Her passion cooled; her eyes went out, like extinguished lamps; she shrank as she sat there; and soon she began to whine again before the thought of her losses. "Christ! what a cursed day! What----" A sudden sound struck her silent. Grace had moved and loosened a fragment of stone. The noise, though slight enough, reached Lovey's ear. She snatched up a candle and, hastening into the recesses of the cavern, came face to face with her visitor. Amazement so absolute overwhelmed the miser at this discovery, that for a space it smothered every other emotion. She glared speechless, then fell back and at last spoke. "God's word! Be I drunk or dreaming? Are you alive, or dead an' prying here a ghost from the grave? If you'm dead I don't care a button for 'e! An' if you'm alive----" "I'm quite alive, Lovey Lee," said Grace without flinching before the ancient's terrific face. "Alive, be you? Then 'tis the last minute you shall live to say you'm alive! How did you get here? Tell me, or I'll kill you by inches--a finger to a time!" "I've done you no harm, Lovey. And I'll thank you to speak more quietly. There are men hunting for me on the Moor, and I've no wish for them to find me," said Grace firmly. As yet no fear had touched her heart. "Find you! They'll not find you! God A'mighty won't find you. You'm dead a'ready!" "I'm not dead at all; and I'm not going to die. If you'd listen, instead of screaming at me, I might tell you why I am here, and how I came here." Lovey put the candle on a ledge above their heads; then she sat upon the fern couch that her grandson had spread for Grace. "Get you up on your feet and stand afore me!" she said. "I'm mistress here--not you. Death! to think as ever I should allow any human but myself in this pit. Tell me truth how you found it--else I'll strangle you." "The truth is easily told: and you shall pay dearly for these insults yet, you wicked woman! It was meant to marry me to Peter Norcot; and your grandson helped me to escape from that fate. John is always on the side of the weak. I owe my salvation to him. I am waiting for him now." "Jack Lee found out then! Blast--but I needn't waste no words there. His thread's spun. So you runned from your faither an' that man? You might so soon think to trick Satan as Norcot. But I'll trick him. He can't marry dead bones. An' yet--there's money to it. Only I be so tight placed myself." "That candle-flame will crack the Malherb amphora, Lovey Lee, if you don't move it," said Grace. The woman sprang up and extinguished a dip that flamed too near her treasure.