"A cruel blow, Malherb, an' me so old. Yet I agged 'e to it. Forgive my evil tongue. I'm a woman still, for all my wickedness. I'll kneel to 'e; I'll pray to 'e; I'll lick thy boots. I've paid for my sins, God knows that; don't send me to the gallows, after all these days." "You are Lovey Lee?" "Ess--that forlorn wretch. Look!" She pulled back her hair and he saw his handiwork. "Forgive a coward's blow, woman." "'Twas the hand of God, not yours," she answered. "When you cracked my head, you let a thousand devils out. I bless your name--even I----" "This day is sacred for evermore," he said very slowly. "To many you have brought darkness and sorrow; to me you stand here now a messenger of light from Heaven--an angel of good tidings. Henceforth may your name be blessed. Alive and not dead!" The labourers stared, and Lovey cast them a bitter glance that penetrated to their rude consciousness. Their hopes, at least, were shattered. She pointed to the amphora, where it lay at Malherb's feet. "They've stabbed me to the soul and taken half my remaining years from me. A moment more and it would have been splinters in the river--my life and my heart's blood." Maurice Malherb stared at the glass bubble. To him it was an atom of inconceivable insignificance in the face of this stupendous discovery that Lovey lived. "Her snake's life be wrapped up in that toy, your honour," said Bickford, "an' I'll swear to God she said it weren't of no account to anybody but her." "'Twas true. If you'd cracked it, my life would have cracked with it. But now--'tis mine no more. My light's out; my thread's spun. I only ax that I may hold it in this old hand once again; then I'll give it to 'e, an' vanish out of man's sight for ever." This she said meaning to destroy the vase, to dash it into a thousand fragments at Malherb's feet and take the consequences. He did not guess at her malignant purpose. Her harsh, high voice was now the music of Heaven to his ear; the lizard life in her wrinkled carcase oozed like balm upon his sight and made him young. He feasted his senses upon her, even while he doubted his senses; and in spirit uttered a petition to his Maker that this might be no dream. "Touch me, Lovey Lee," he commanded. "Hold my hand in yours, press upon it. I must feel your flesh warm; I must put my finger upon your pulse that I may know your heart is beating. You have risen from the dead and lifted me from worse than death. Give me your hand." She held out to him her gnarled, huge paw. It was wrinkled and bony; each great artery ran like a blue cord under the brown skin; each black nail was sharp as an eagle's claw. "Heed your going," she said, "else that treasure there will fall under your heel--the amphora." He saw her eyes burning upon it, and a sudden, mad, Malherb impulse took him.