“Ha! you loved me, did you? I was a pretty lass then. Yes, you loved me, I know you loved me. You would have died for me, and I loved you, too. But little Sarah loved you and you loved her. I know you loved me most, but I would not have that. ‘I should have controlled myself,’ you say; ha! I was jealous and I hated you. Self-control and love;—no, no, liberty and hate, liberty and hate; and when you were ill I came to see you and I saw the love-light in your eyes. They thought you would get well. Of course you would have got well; but there you were, great big, strong man, weak as a child,—a child! I hate children. Was that it? You tried to push my hands off, as I pressed the pillow on your face, you tried; oh, you tried hard, and I laugh to think of it even now. How I longed to bury my fingers in your throat, but I knew they would leave marks.

“Yes, liberty and hate, ha! ha! I would do it again. See, Oswald!” and she took the brittle bone and viciously snapped it across her knee. “Self-control! love! unselfishness! Never! And that child up at the Hall, Oswald, I must send her after you. I have just frightened Sarah down to you. You can have her now, and that child shall come next. Hate is stronger than love. Liberty, self-will and hate must win in the end.”

The abandoned old wretch stood up and took her stick—she could not stand quite straight—and hobbled with uncanny swiftness across to a newly made child’s grave and began to scrape with her hands; but at that moment she heard the night-watchman coming along the lane; so she rose and walked back to Newbiggin, where she lived.

She opened the door and found the tinder box and struck a light, and then went to a corner where there was an old chest. She unlocked it and peered in and lifted out a bag and shook it. It was full of gold. “Yes,” she said, “money is a good thing, too. How little they know what ‘old Moll o’ the graves’ has got,—old, indeed, Moll is not old! Ah, could not that money tell some strange tales? Love and learning and self-control! Leave all that to the priests. Hate will do for me,—money and liberty are my gods.

“Aha, Aline Gillespie, you little fool, what do you mean by crossing my path? I was a pretty little girl once and you are not going to win the love of Upper Teesdale folk for nothing, I’ll warrant you.”

CHAPTER II
SECRETS

“I AM so tired of this rain,” said Audry, as she rose and crossed the solar[1] and went to the tall bay window with its many mullions and sat down on the window seat. “It is three days since we have been able to get out and no one has seen the top of Mickle Fell for a week. The gale is enough to deafen one,” she added, “while the moat is like a stormy sea,—and just look at the mad dancers in the rain-rings on the water!”

[1] The predecessor of the withdrawing room or drawing room.

It was a terrible day, the river was in spate[2] indeed, carrying down great trees and broken fences and even, now and then, some unfortunate beast that had been swept away in the violence of the storm.