Reuben went slowly back into the house. Hannah was in the parlour--so he saw through the half-opened door. He went into the room, which smelt musty and close from disuse. Hannah was standing over the open drawer of an old-fashioned corner cupboard, carefully scanning a letter and enclosure before she locked them up. 'Is 't Mr. Gurney's money?' Reuben said to her, in a queer voice. She was startled, not having heard him come in, but she put what she held into the drawer all the more deliberately, and turned the key. 'Ay, 't is.' Reuben sat himself down on one of the hard chairs beside the table in the middle of the room. The light streaming through the shutters Hannah had just opened streamed in on his grizzling head and face working with emotion. 'It's stolen money,' he said hoarsely. 'Yo're stealin it fro Davy.' Hannah smiled grimly, and withdrew the key. 'I'm paying missel an yo, Reuben Grieve, for t' keep o' two wuthless brats as cost moor nor they pays,' she said, with an accent which somehow sent a shiver through Reuben. '_I_ don't keep udder foaks' childer fur nothin.' 'Yo've had moor nor they cost for seven year,' said Reuben, with the same thick tense utterance. 'Yo should let Davy ha it, an gie him a trade.' Hannah walked up to the door and shut it. 'I should, should I? An who'll pay for Louie--for your luvely limb of a niece? It 'ud tak about that,' and she pointed grimly to the drawer, 'to coover what she wastes an spiles i' t' yeer.' 'Yo get her work, Hannah. Her bit and sup cost yo most nothin. I cud wark a bit moor--soa cud yo. Yo're hurtin me i' mi conscience, Hannah--yo're coomin atwixt me an th' Lord!' He brought a shaking hand down on the damask table-cloth among the wool mats and the chapel hymn-books which adorned it. His long, loose frame had drawn itself up with a certain dignity. 'Ha done wi your cantin!' said Hannah under her breath, laying her two hands on the table, and stooping down so as to face him with more effect. The phrase startled Reuben with a kind of horror. Whatever words might have passed between them, never yet that he could remember had his wife allowed herself a sneer at his religion. It seemed to him suddenly as though he and she were going fast downhill--slipping to perdition, because of Sandy's six hundred pounds. But she cowed him--she always did. She stayed a moment in the same bent and threatening position, coercing him with angry eyes. Then she straightened herself, and moved away. 'Let t' lad tak hisself off if he wants to,' she said, an iron resolution in her voice. 'I told yo so afore--I woan't cry for 'im. But as long as Louie's here, an I ha to keep her, I'll want that money, an every penny on't. If it bean't paid, she may go too!' 'Yo'd not turn her out, Hannah?' cried Reuben, instinctively putting out an arm to feel that the door was closed. '_She_'d not want for a livin,' replied Hannah, with a bitter sneer; 'she's her mither's child.'