r, you call 'em--looked down him, as he was stretched
out on the shore of the sea, all along, and didn't know him till he come
to the boots, and he says, 'It's Abner;' for there was his boots to know
him by. Now, will you deny, Mas' Gammon, you said, Mr. Hackbut's boots,
and a long stride it was for 'em from London? And I won't be laughed at
through arts of any sly old man!"

The circumstantial charge made no impression on Master Gammon, who was
heard to mumble, as from the inmost recesses of tight-packed dumpling;
but he left the vindication of his case to the farmer's laughter. The
mention of her uncle had started a growing agitation in Rhoda, to whom
the indication of his eccentric behaviour was a stronger confirmation of
his visit to the neighbourhood. And wherefore had he journeyed down? Had
he come to haunt her on account of the money he had poured into her lap?
Rhoda knew in a moment that she was near a great trial of her strength
and truth. She had more than once, I cannot tell you how distantly,
conceived that the money had been money upon which the mildest word for
"stolen" should be put to express the feeling she had got about it, after
she had parted with the bulk of it to the man Sedgett. Not "stolen," not
"appropriated," but money that had perhaps been entrusted, and of which
Anthony had forgotten the rightful ownership. This idea of hers had
burned with no intolerable fire; but, under a weight of all
discountenancing appearances, feeble though it was, it had distressed
her. The dealing with money, and the necessity for it, had given Rhoda a
better comprehension of its nature and value. She had taught herself to
think that her suspicion sprang from her uncle's wild demeanour, and the
scene of the gold pieces scattered on the floor, as if a heart had burst
at her feet.

No sooner did she hear that Anthony had been, by supposition, seen, than
the little light of secret dread flamed a panic through her veins. She
left the table before Master Gammon had finished, and went out of the
house to look about for her uncle. He was nowhere in the fields, nor in
the graveyard. She walked over the neighbourhood desolately, until her
quickened apprehension was extinguished, and she returned home relieved,
thinking it folly to have imagined her uncle was other than a man of
hoarded wealth, and that he was here. But, in the interval, she had
experienced emotions which warned her of a struggle to come. Who would be
friendl