Then again—
One! Two! Three!
'A woman. Who can she be? Who is ill? But—how old?' Then, again, the bell—
One! Two! Three!————up to forty-six.
'Aged forty-six! Who can it be?'
Many faces appeared at the windows and doors of the street at Mergatroyd, and when the sexton emerged from the belfry, he was saluted with inquiries of, 'Who is dead? Forty-six years old—who can she be?'
'Mrs. Cusworth. Dropped dead with heart complaint.'
Now, in Yorkshire, when a man dies, then the bell tolls, Four, four, four; when a boy, then Four, four, two; when a woman dies, then as above, Thrice three; and when a girl, Three, three, two; after which, in each case, the age is tolled.
'Fiddlesticks!—you may say what you will, it is fiddlesticks,' said Mrs. Sidebottom impatiently. She was in the study with Philip. 'I never heard of anything so monstrous, so inhuman. I could not have believed it of you. And yet—after what I have seen, I can believe anything of you.'
Philip was unmoved. 'The plunder of that wretched fellow,' he said unconcernedly, 'shall be placed in proper hands. How much there is I cannot now say, and I do not know how many persons he has defrauded, and to what an extent. Whether all will get back everything is not certain; probably they will receive a part, perhaps a large part, but not all.'