Those who ministered to her in her convalescence found it difficult to understand Jeckie Farnish's curious apathy and indifference to the things about her. Once her sister was out of danger, Rushie had gone home to Binks and her children; Binks was by that time a bustling tradesman in Sicaster, and had prospered so well that Rushie wore a real sealskin coat and sported gold chains and diamond rings. It had been Binks's idea that his wife should go to the rescue when Jeckie was taken ill; blood, said Binks, with the air of a Solomon, was thicker than water when all's said and done, and bygones should be bygones, and in no half-measures. So Rushie waited on Jeckie hand and foot, and Jeckie, after she had come to herself, watched her going about the sick room and said nothing. At that time, indeed, she said nothing to anybody, and when Rushie had returned, leaving her sister in charge of Farnish and a neighbour-woman, she said less. Farnish began to wonder if her illness had affected her mind, and voiced his doubts to the doctor; the doctor made him leave Jeckie alone; she would speak, he said, as soon as she wanted to.

There came a time when Farnish was obliged to speak, whether Jeckie wanted to hear or not. He approached her bedside one day in a shamefaced, diffident manner, looking doubtfully at her.

"Jecholiah, mi lass," said Farnish, "theer's a little matter 'at I mun mention to yer, though I'm sure I wouldn't trouble yer wi' it if it could be helped. But ye see, mi lass, when ye were ta'en badly an' could do nowt for yersen, I hed to tak things i' hand, and of course, I hed to lay out money. I knew wheer you kep' a certain supply down theer i' t'owd bewro i' t'kitchen corner, and I hed to force t'lock and lay hands on it. That's three months and more since, and for all I've been varry careful about layin' it out, it's come to an end, as all such commodities, as they term 'em, does. What mun I do, mi lass?"

Jeckie made an effort of memory, and remembered how much money there had been in the old bureau of which her father spoke—something between forty and fifty pounds, as far as she could recollect. She made a rapid calculation and found that Farnish had spent between three and four pounds a week during her illness. There was nothing extravagant in such expenditure at such a time. But she gave him a sharp, searching look.

"You made that do? You have borrowed aught from anybody?" she demanded.

"Surely not, mi lass!" protested Farnish. "No!"

"Not from them Binkses?" questioned Jeckie.

"Nowt from nobody, Jecholiah," said Farnish. "It's panned out very well, ower fourteen weeks. There's happen a pound or so left. But——"

"Go downstairs, and come up again when I knock on t'floor," said Jeckie. "I have a bit in my box."

Farnish went away in his usual obedient fashion, and when he had gone, Jeckie, who hitherto had been unable to get out of bed unaided, made shift to rise, and to wrap a shawl round her shoulders. Weak as she was, her first action was characteristic—to totter to the door and lock it. That cost her trembling limbs an effort; she had to summon all her small reserve of strength and to pause once or twice in order to cross the floor to a heavy, iron-clamped box which stood in one corner of the room, staying again on the way to extract a key from a certain hiding-place beneath the carpet. And when this box was unlocked she found it difficult work to lift out and lay aside the various things that lay within; it took some time before she had got down to the bottom and had there unearthed a smaller box, wherein, months before, when she had been obliged to face possible contingencies, she had placed a personal reserve fund. The key of that box was in an old satchel kept within the larger one; she found it at last and laid bare her secret store.

Weak and trembling as she was, Jeckie could not forbear the satisfaction of counting over this money. She had deposited there a thousand pounds in banknotes, and fifty in gold, and she slowly counted paper and coin. It was all there, all safe, and she took ten pounds in gold, put the rest back, and with many tremblings and restings, locked up the two boxes, unlocked the door, knocked loudly on the floor, and climbed back into bed.

"There's ten pound," she said when Farnish came up in response to her summons. "Make it go as far as you can."

She turned her face away then, as if wanting no talk on the matter, and Farnish took the hint and the money and went quietly away. It astonished him, as Jeckie grew stronger, that she asked no questions about his expenditure; once upon a time, she would have made him account for every penny. But now she seemed indifferent; she was indifferent, indeed, to everything, and there came a time when she showed no interest in the doctor's visits, as if she cared nothing whether he was doing her good or not. But all that time she was steadily improving, and at last the doctor told her, in Farnish's presence, that there was no need for him to come again and that she could get up.

"Ye'll be glad to take a look round, no doubt, mi lass," observed Farnish, when the doctor had gone. "It'll liven you up."

Jeckie made no reply. The neighbour-woman got her up next day, helped her to dress, and bustled about in the hope of making her comfortable at her first rising. When Jeckie was dressed this good Samaritan went downstairs and returned with an easy chair and cushions.

"I'll put this here agen t'winda, Miss Farnish," she said with cheery officiousness. "Ye'll be able to look out theer ower t'pit, and see what they're a-doin' on theer. Nowt so lively as it wor afore t'accident, but theer is things bein' done theer, an' happen ye'll like to get a glimpse on' em, for, of course, ye mun ha' been anxious, an'——"

"Put that chair in that corner!" snapped Jeckie, with a sudden gleam of her old temper. "An' hold yer wisht about t'pit! When I want to talk about t'pit, I'll let you know."

The woman had sufficient sense to see that her charge was irritable, and she made no answer; she had enough wit, too, to place the easy chair in a corner of the room from which it was impossible to see out of the window. And in that corner Jeckie spent the first period of her convalescence, at first doing nothing, afterwards occupying herself in mending her linen.

Farnish came upstairs every now and then, always with some question—was she wanting aught? But Jeckie never wanted anything; she ate and drank whatever was put before her without remark and with apparent indifference, and so the days went by. And during the whole of that time she never asked her father a question save once.

"Where," she asked suddenly, one day, as Farnish hung about the bedroom in his usual aimless, good-intentioned fashion, "where did they bury Scholes?"

"Why, i' t'churchyard, to be sure, mi lass!" answered Farnish, glad to break the silence which he found so trying. "Wheer else? Ligged him i' t'same grave as his missus—ye'll know t'spot; halfway down that new piece o' ground 'at they took in fro' Stubley's ten-acre a few years sin'. Aye, he wor buried all reight theer, wor Ben—same as anybody else. Why, mi lass?"

"Naught!" answered Jeckie, and relapsed into her usual silence.

The same silence continued when she at last went downstairs. And there Farnish noticed that she never went near the window of the living-room; it, like that of her bedroom, overlooked the ill-fated colliery. For awhile she accepted the help and ministrations of the neighbour-woman; then one day she gave her some money and with the curt remark that in future she and her father could fend for themselves, dismissed her. She began to go about the cottage then, and to do the household work, and Farnish, who was somewhat shrewd as regards observation, noticed that one night, when the darkness had fallen, she fitted two muslin blinds to the window of the living-room and the window of her chamber above; the light could come in through them, but no one could see out.

"It's t'same as if our Jeckie niver wanted to set her eyes on yon theer pit an' its surroundings niver no more!" observed Farnish, narrating this curious circumstance to his principal crony. "Shutten 'em clean out, as it weer!"

"An' no wonder, considerin' how things has befallen," remarked the crony. "If things hed turned out wi' onny affair o' mine as that's turned out wi' her, d'ye think I should want to hev' it i' front o' my eyes, allus remindin' me o' what had happened? Nowt o' t'sort!"

"Aye!" said Farnish, reflectively. "But—she knows nowt, as yet."

There came a time when Jeckie had to know. One morning, when she was fully restored to health, though now a gaunt and haggard woman, grey-haired and spiritless, Farnish, who had been out in the village, came in as she was washing up the breakfast things in the scullery and approached her with evident concern.

"Jecholiah, mi lass," he said, in a low voice, "theer's Mestur Revis outside, i' his trap. He's called at t'doctor's as he came through Sicaster, and t'doctor says you're now fit to hev a bit o' business talk. And Mestur Revis is varry anxious to come in and hev it, now. How will it be, mi lass?"

Jeckie finished polishing her china before she answered, and Farnish stood by, silent, anxiously waiting.

"Happen I know as much as Revis or anybody else can tell," she said at last in a queer voice. "And happen I got to know it in a way 'at neither Revis nor you, nor anybody, 'ud understand. But—tell him to come in."

Farnish went out to the colliery proprietor, who sat in his smart dog-cart, meditatively surveying the scene on the other side of the road. There were no signs of activity now about the pit on which Jeckie had set such hopes; the surface buildings stood as ruinous as the explosions had left them; on the hillside the cottages intended for the miners were just as they were when all work had come to an end on them; over the whole surface of the Leys there was ruin and desolation. And Revis had just shaken his head and heaved a deep sigh when Farnish emerged from the cottage.

"She'll see you now, if you'll please go in, Mestur Revis," said Farnish. Then he looked half entreatingly, half wistfully at the big man. "Ye'll break it gentle to her, sir?" he added. "She's in a queer state of mind, to my thinking."

"Leave it to me, my lad," said Revis, as he got out of his dog-cart. "I'll make it as easy as I can for her."

He went up the path to the cottage door, tapped, and walked in. Jeckie sat in her accustomed corner, in the shadows, but Revis saw how she had changed, and it was with a curious mixture of pity and wonder and interest that he went up and held out his hand to her.

"Well, my lass!" he said, with a sympathetic effort to put some cheeriness into his voice. "You've had a bad time of it, to be sure, poor thing! But—you're better?"

"Well enough to hear aught you've to say, Mr. Revis," answered Jeckie. "And—sit down and tell me straight out, if you please. You know me!"

Revis gave her a searching look and pulled a chair in front of her.

"Aye!" he said. "I think I know! Well, it's not cheering news, but you'd better know it. You know already that I've done what I could to look after things for you while you've been ill?"

"Yes, and I'm obliged to you," answered Jeckie. "You were always a good friend."

"It was this way," continued Revis. "When you were taken ill that brother-in-law of yours, Binks, came to me and asked me if I couldn't do something to help. I came over and consulted with him and your partner and her husband. We went right into things. Of course you know that when your illness came you were just at the end of your capital?"

"Who should know better!" exclaimed Jeckie, bitterly.

"Well, that was so," asserted Revis. "So—everything stopped, with those shafts still half-full of water, and——"

"I know how they were, and how all else was," interrupted Jeckie. "You can't tell me anything about that!"

"To be sure!" said Revis, humouring her. "Well, the question was—was it worth while putting more capital—it would have had to be a lot more capital!—to clear the mine, get all going again, and go on? Now, I had some talk with two or three influential men in the district, and we decided to come to your help if we could see that all the money you and Mrs. Albert Grice had put in, and all that we should have to put in would be got back—that, in short, the results would justify the expenditure. In other words, what amount of coal is under this property and close to it? You understand?"

For the first time for many long months a faint flush of colour came to Jeckie Farnish's haggard cheeks, and she spoke with some show of interest.

"You mean to say that there's a doubt?" she asked.

"We'll leave doubts out," answered Revis. "That was the real problem. I put aside all the investigations that you made before you started, and made some of my own, at my own expense. You know what a thorough man I am about such things. Well, I made, at once, more borings, in different parts, not only of your property, but in the land round about. I've known the truth now for a week or two; it's an unpleasant one. There's without doubt a good bed beneath your land, but a small one. What you'd have got out of it would possibly have given you back your capital and a bit over. But there's none elsewhere! And your pit's been so ruined by that explosion, and there's such a body of water that——"

"I understand," said Jeckie, interrupting him with a significant look. "It's useless!"

"If you want plain words, my lass—yes!" answered Revis. "To get that pit cleared and to go on again would cost far more than you'd ever get back. I reckoned everything up, with your partner's assistance—you know she'd power to act for you if you couldn't—and things were just here—what with paying everything up to the time of stoppage and so on, you've just come to the end of your capital, and—there you are! It's a very sad thing, but it's one of these things that have to be faced."

"The workmen and all the rest of them?" asked Jeckie.

"All paid off—gone, weeks since," replied Revis, laconically.

"And the stuffs about those shafts—material—the building material at those cottages, and all that?" she inquired.

"Sold—to settle things up," said Revis. "Your partner had power to do all that, you know, as you couldn't. We all made the biggest effort we could for you and for her. To put things in a nutshell—you owe nothing to the bank or to anybody, and the whole concern is just a ruin which anybody can take up and remake if they like. I would have liked, but it isn't worth it."

Jeckie looked steadily at her visitor for a long time.

"Then," she said at last, in a low voice that was curiously firm, "then—I've nothing?"

Revis shook his head.

"Nothing," he answered. "Nothing! except the forty acres that you bought in the beginning."

He was surprised to hear Jeckie laugh. He was something of a student of human nature, this big, bluff man, but he could not gauge the precise meaning of that laugh, and he looked at the woman before him, in some slight alarm, which she was quick to recognise.

"I'm not going mad, Revis," she said. "I was only thinking that at the end of all that I've got—forty acres! Those forty acres!"

"How much did you give for them?" he asked, inquisitively. "A lot? I'd an idea it was for next to naught that you got them."

Jeckie suddenly got up from her chair, and turned towards the hearth. She stood looking into the fire for some time, and when, at last, she glanced at her visitor there was a look in her eyes which Revis never forgot.

"What did I give for them?" she said in a low, concentrated voice. "Man!—I don't know—yet!—what I gave for them!"

Revis stood staring at her for a moment of wonder. Her answer was beyond him. And as he had no reply to it he turned to go. But Jeckie stopped him.

"Wait a minute," she said. "A question—Lucilla Grice and her husband?"

"They've left the neighbourhood," replied Revis. "They sold their house and furniture and went away. I don't know where they've gone."

Jeckie said no more, and Revis went out, said a few words to Farnish, and drove off. And Farnish went indoors, and found Jeckie already setting about the preparations for their early dinner. He was astonished to find that she began to be talkative that day; still more astonished that, when evening came, she cooked a hot supper, encouraged him to eat, ate heartily herself, and before they went to bed mixed a goodly tumbler of grog for each of them. It was, thought Farnish, like old times, and he went to his chamber in high content.

But as the grey dawn broke a few hours later, Farnish woke to find Jeckie, fully dressed, standing at his bedside. He stared at her in astonishment.

"Get up; get dressed; come down; we're going away," said Jeckie. "Don't talk, but do as I tell you. There'll be some breakfast ready by the time you're down."

Farnish obeyed; he was still as clay in his elder daughter's hands. And an hour later, still obedient though wondering, he followed her out of the cottage, and up the empty street of Savilestowe, past what had once been Grice's, past what had once been the Golden Teapot, past the last house, past the last tree. At the top of the hill, and as the morning broke, he turned and looked back, having some strange intuition that he was being taken away from a place which he had known long and would never see again. He stood looking for some minutes; when he turned, Jeckie, who had never once looked back, was marching stolidly ahead.