"Aye, tha may weel ax, lad. Thou'rt at Mester Willie Brooke's at Northgate House i' Honley, an' here tha's been awmost ivver sin they sammed thi up i'th churchyard all swoonded away; an' long it wer' afore they knowed reightly whether tha wer' wick or deead." "Have I been poorly?" asked Tom. "What am I doing here? Where's Ben? Is he at th' mill? There's those pieces for Skilbeck's want 'livering. Why isn't Lucy here?" "Poorly! Tha may weel say that, an' off thi yed for days together, an' of all th' stuff 'at ivver a man talked, all abaat 'junctions, an' love, an' ferrets, an' rabbits, an' then tryin' to swim, an' it took two on us to howd thi i' bed. But theer, it's time tha had thi physic, an' then thi mun go to sleep agen, an' th' cook 'll mak thi some arrowroot, an' thou'rt to have a glass o' port wine in it, th' doctor says, teetotal or no teetotal, which aw nivver did howd wi' i' time o' sickness, an' agen th' law o' natur' in a way o' speikin'." But Hannah's views on this grave question were lost upon the invalid. He had again sunk into deep and refreshing sleep, and as Hannah laid her hand gently upon his brow, the slight moisture told that the fever in which he had tossed and raved had succumbed to care and treatment. When Tom awoke Hannah's place had been taken by a tall, grey-haired man of spare form, broad shoulders and slightly bent, his forehead lined with the tracery of time and care. His eyes had been long fixed upon the features of the sleeping youth and seemed from their expression to seek for some flitting transient likeness they bore a moment but to lose the next. It was Jabez Tinker. From the face so often, so minutely scanned, the eyes of the watcher turned at times to a small gold locket he held in his palm. It bore in pearls the letters. A.J. It was the locket taken by Moll o' Stuarts from the slender neck of the way-worn woman the _Hanging Gate_ had received more than twenty years before, the locket confided to Tom by Mr. Black, and which, ever since, night and day, sleeping or waking, he had worn beneath his vest. Presently Mr. Tinker became aware by that subtle uneasy sense we all have felt, that Tom's eyes were fixed inquiringly on his face. He rose somewhat stiffly to his feet and bent over the bed. He took the hand that lay upon the coverlet. "Are you better, Tom?" he asked, very gently. "We have been very anxious about you." Tom looked upon the features, usually so stern, with puzzled interest. He seemed to be searching for some elusive memory of the past. "I dreamed you were dead, drowned," he said at length. "But I seem to remember so many strange things for an instant or two. Then it is all blank again. But mostly I seem to be fighting with some awful, pitiless enemy that tosses and whirls and throttles me till I choke. And then again all is dark and vague, and I remember nothing."