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 seen it recently—­the day before, perhaps, or that very day, or that very hour, that very hour?

“Look out for yourself,” he whispered, hoarsely, to his wife.  “Look out for yourself, my girl.  I’ll hunt for it, and hunt for it, and hunt for it, and some day I’ll find it—­I will, you’ll see—­I’ll find it, I’ll find it; and if I don’t, I’ll find a way that’ll make you tell me where it is.  I’ll make you speak—­believe me, I will, I will, my girl—­trust me for that.”

And at night Maria would sometimes wake to find Zerkow gone from the bed, and would see him burrowing into some corner by the light of his dark-lantern and would hear him mumbling to himself:  “There were more’n a hundred pieces, and every one of ’em gold—­when the leather trunk was opened it fair dazzled your eyes—­why, just that punchbowl was worth a fortune, I guess; solid, solid, heavy, rich, pure gold, nothun but gold, gold, heaps and heaps of it—­what a glory!  I’ll find it yet, I’ll find it.  It’s here somewheres, hid somewheres in this house.”

At length his continued ill success began to exasperate him.  One day he took his whip from his junk wagon and thrashed Maria with it, gasping the while, “Where is it, you beast?  Where is it?  Tell me where it is; I’ll make you speak.”

“I don’ know, I don’ know,” cried Maria, dodging his blows.  “I’d tell you, Zerkow, if I knew; but I don’ know nothing about it.  How can I tell you if I don’ know?”