on't be a fool; let's have it, let's have it. Begin now, 'There were
more'n a hundred pieces, and every one of 'em gold.' Oh, YOU know; come
on, come on."

"I don't remember nothing of the kind," protested Maria, reaching for
the bottle. Zerkow snatched it from her.

"You fool!" he wheezed, trying to raise his broken voice to a shout.
"You fool! Don't you dare try an' cheat ME, or I'll DO for you. You know
about the gold plate, and you know where it is." Suddenly he pitched his
voice at the prolonged rasping shout with which he made his street cry.
He rose to his feet, his long, prehensile fingers curled into fists. He
was menacing, terrible in his rage. He leaned over Maria, his fists in
her face.

"I believe you've got it!" he yelled. "I believe you've got it, an' are
hiding it from me. Where is it, where is it? Is it here?" he rolled his
eyes wildly about the room. "Hey? hey?" he went on, shaking Maria by the
shoulders. "Where is it? Is it here? Tell me where it is. Tell me, or
I'll do for you!"

"It ain't here," cried Maria, wrenching from him. "It ain't anywhere.
What gold plate? What are you talking about? I don't remember nothing
about no gold plate at all."

No, Maria did not remember. The trouble and turmoil of her mind
consequent upon the birth of her child seemed to have readjusted her
disordered ideas upon this point. Her mania had come to a crisis, which
in subsiding had cleared her brain of its one illusion. She did not
remember. Or it was possible that the gold plate she had once remembered
had had some foundation in fact, that her recital of its splendors had
been truth, sound and sane. It was possible that now her FORGETFULNESS
of it was some form of brain trouble, a relic of the dementia of
childbirth. At all events Maria did not remember; the idea of the gold
plate had passed entirely out of her mind, and it was now Zerkow who
labored under its hallucination. It was now Zerkow, the raker of the
city's muck heap, the searcher after gold, that saw that wonderful
service in the eye of his perverted mind. It was he who could now
describe it in a language almost eloquent. Maria had been content merely
to remember it; but Zerkow's avarice goaded him to a belief that it was
still in existence, hid somewhere, perhaps in that very house, stowed
away there by Maria. For it stood to reason, didn't it, that Maria could
not have described it with such wonderful accuracy and such careful
detail unless she had