Getting up from the bench and treading carefully—he whose step was always light—he tiptoed over to the wall cupboard. It yawned before him, a darkness hollowed in the solid masonry and with unerring certainty, as if his hand had gone that way in dreams, it fell on that which it sought, a little ribbed blue phial, with an orange label. The last occasion on which he had used it, had been when he adjudged Shep to be old and useless. The bottle was only a quarter full, and he felt sorry that he had wasted any of the precious contents on the dog. Would the quarter be sufficient for his purpose? For a moment he hung uncertain, but the passions which were riding him to destruction forced him to take the risk. He heard Sabina crossing the floor of the linhay and the repugnance with which she inspired him rose like nausea in his throat. He went blind with hatred, the hatred so long repressed, that primitive hatred of the under-dog. As one pressed for time, he uncorked the bottle and held it to the jug of cocoa. The colourless fluid gurgled as it flowed over the blue rim and the sound, striking through the man’s absorption, woke in him the beginnings of fear. Even now, she might be able to come between him and success, this necessary, intolerably-longed-for success. He stared with wild eyes at the linhay door. If she had heard, if she came in and in her high brave way faced him and accused him, he was done. To use violence to Sabina was not in him. He could only work against her in secret, get her at a disadvantage, strike from behind. If she found him out, he would not dare any more, he would be beaten and it would break him. His spirit acknowledged that there was a limit. He listened but Sabina was still moving from shelf to shelf on her fruitless errand. He grew conscious that the sweat was running into his eyes. Raising a hand, a hand foul with seal’s blood, to wipe it from his forehead, he left a brown smear in its place. The drops fell hissing on the red-hot coals and, out of his other hand, Byron dropped that ominous blue phial into the fire. A splutter and crackle of flame, louder than any of the man’s furtive movements, spat out at him. Terrified he turned to the box beside the hearth, a strong old box which had come in from the sea and was now used to hold driftwood. From it he snatched thick pieces and thin queer-shaped bits of old dead ships, of their gear and their furniture, and piled them on the tell-tale bottle. When Mrs. Byron returned from her unsuccessful search, he was holding his trembling hands before the blaze and the flames were leaping over the heap of sea-rimed fuel. "Mercy!" cried she, at the sight of what seemed to her careful mind a waste of good wreck, "you’ll catch the chimbly afire. Us don’t want a big fire, ’tis near bedtime, now." She rolled forward as if to remove a log but Leadville stood his ground. "Leave’n go. If I didn’t want it, I shouldn’t ha’ put it there. I’m cold."