Tonight, Silas Marner plans to lay his hard-earned savings out along with his supper; so he goes to the hole in the floor where he keeps them, only to find it empty. Dazed, he tries to steady his rocking world by reasoning that he must have stowed the coins somewhere else, contrary to invariable habit.

A feverish search of his house follows, from workroom to bedroom, but reveals no coins. For a moment, his mind still refuses to accept what his senses tell him, but it is a last flicker of fading hope, not a settled delusion. Reason at last acknowledges that the coins are quite gone, and Silas lets out an anguished cry.

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