"What might you be doing?" "Bit o' travelling," replied Albert. "The old line--a patent food. No great thing; but, as you say, it's, well, just a nice living. For a single man, keeps one going; and I can manage a cigar now and then, and a drop o' that," he added, with a knowing sidelong glance at the bottle. "I don't complain." Jeckie shrugged her shoulders. "What's the use?" she said. Albert suddenly rose, went out into the passage, and came back with a packet in his hand, which he presented to her. "This is the stuff," he said. "Invaluable for children, invalids, and old people. You might try it on your father; it's grand stuff for old 'uns when they've lost their teeth. Lately I've done very nicely with it. What I want is to get a bigger connection with leading firms in some of these towns. I'm going to try a whole day here to-morrow. I've only one of these Scarhaven firms on my list at present. Now, you'll have an idea about where I should go, eh? Happen you can suggest...." They continued talking for an hour or two, facing each other across the hearth, two broken things, with a past behind them, and a bottle between them, each secretly conscious of mutual knowledge, and neither daring to speak of it. They talked of anything but the past, any trifle of the moment; yet the consciousness of the past was there, spectre-like, and each felt it. And, at last, as the clock struck eleven, Jeckie rose and lighted a candle. "I'll show you your room," she said. "You can depend on the bed being well-aired; I'm always particular about that; and there's everything you'll want. And I'll have a good breakfast ready at half-past eight." When she had shown Albert to his room she went downstairs again, and, gathering the Paisley shawl about her, sat in front of the fire, staring at it and thinking, until the red ashes grew grey, and the grey ashes white. It was past midnight then, but she had so sat, and so heard the clocks strike twelve for many a long year. "As sure as I'm a born woman," she muttered, she rose at last, "it was Ben Scholes's spirit 'at I saw that night! And I were none wrong when I said to Revis 'at I didn't know what I gave for that land! for who knows what I'll have to pay for it yet! But I've kept paying, and paying, and paying, on account; but what about t'balance?" She went slowly and heavily upstairs and looked in on Farnish. The old man was fast asleep, his hands clasped over his breast. "He's all right," she muttered as she left his room. "He never had any great love of money." Albert found a good breakfast of eggs and bacon ready for him when he came down in the morning, and did justice to it. Jeckie stood by the fire and talked to him while he ate, but again there was no reference to the past. And before nine o'clock he had got into his coat and hat, to start out on his round. "I want to get done by four," he said. "I must go on to Kingsport to-night. So now--what do I owe?"