In Minehead, then, there lived at this time a murderer.  He had not been found out yet and he was not a murderer by profession, for he was a bricklayer; but in his heart he was, and that is just as bad.  He had had a varied career into the details of which I do not propose to go, had come three or four years before to live in the West of England because it was so far from all the other places he had lived in, had got work in Minehead, settled there respectably, married, and was a friend of that carrier who brought the bread and other parcels every day to the Symford store.  At this time he was in money difficulties and his wife, of whom he was fond, was in an expensive state of health.  The accounts of Priscilla’s generosity and wealth had reached Minehead as I said some time ago, and had got even into the local papers.  The carrier was the chief transmitter of news, for he saw Mrs. Vickerton every day and she was a woman who loved to talk; but those of the Shuttleworth servants who were often in Minehead on divers errands ratified and added to all he said, and embellished the tale besides with what was to them the most interesting part, the unmistakable signs their Augustus showed of intending to marry the young woman.  This did not interest the murderer.  Sir Augustus and the lady he meant to marry were outside his sphere altogether; too well protected, too powerful.  What he liked to hear about was the money Priscilla had scattered among the cottagers, how much each woman had got, whether it had been spent or not, whether she had a husband, or grown-up children; and best of all he liked to hear about the money Mrs. Jones had got.  All the village, and therefore Mrs. Vickerton and the carrier, knew of it, knew even the exact spot beneath the bolster where it was kept, knew it was kept there for safety from the depredations of the vicar’s wife, knew the vicar’s wife had taken away Priscilla’s first present.  The carrier knew too of Mrs. Jones’s age, her weakness, her nearness to death.  He remarked that such a sum wasn’t of much use to an old woman certain to die in a few days, and that it might just as well not be hers at all for all the spending it got.  The murderer, whose reputation in Minehead was so immaculate that not a single fly had ever dared blow on it, said kindly that no doubt just to have it in her possession was cheering and that one should not grudge the old their little bits of comfort; and he walked over to Symford that night, and getting there about one o’clock murdered Mrs. Jones.  I will not enter into details.  I believe it was quite simple.  He was back by six next morning with the five pounds in his pocket, and his wife that day had meat for dinner.

That is all I shall say about the murderer, except that he was never found out; and nothing shall induce me to dwell upon the murder.  But what about the effect it had on Priscilla?  Well, it absolutely crushed her.