Hope did not see what she had done, and the quick-witted young lady jumping at once at a conclusion, opened her eyes and said,
"Why, don't you see? Some other person has told him what it was so important he should hear first from me. Ah! it is the same gentleman that came and warned me. He has heard that we are actually married, for it is the talk of the place, and he told me she would punish him if he neglected her warning. Oh, what shall I do?"
"You go too fast, Grace, dear. Don't run before trouble like that. Come, go to Colonel Clifford, and you will find it is nothing of the kind."
Grace shook her head grandly. Experience had given her faith in her own instincts, as people call them—though they are subtle reasonings the steps of which are not put forward—and she went down to the study.
"Grace, my dear," said the Colonel, "I think I shall have a fit of the gout."
"Oh no," said Grace. "We have trouble enough."
"It gets less every day, my dear; that is one comfort. But what I meant was that our poor invalids eclipse me entirely in your good graces. That is because you are a true woman, and an honor to your sex. But I should like to see a little more of you. Well, all in good time. I didn't send for you to tell you that. Sit down, my girl; it is a matter of business."
Grace sat down, keenly on her guard, though she did not show it in the least. Colonel Clifford resumed,
"You may be sure that nothing has been near my heart for some time but your danger and my dear son's. Still, I owe something to other sufferers, and the poor widows whose husbands have perished in that mine have cried to me for vengeance on the person who bribed that Burnley. I am a magistrate, too, and duty must never be neglected. I have got detectives about, and I have offered five hundred guineas reward for the discovery of the villain. One Jem Davies described him to me, and I put the description on the placard and in the papers. But now I learn that Davies's description is all second-hand. He had it from you. Now, I must tell you that a description at second-hand always misses some part or other. As a magistrate, I never encourage Jack to tell me what Jill says when I can get hold of Jill. You are Jill, my dear, so now please verify Jack's description or correct it. However, the best way will be to give me your own description before I read you his."
"I will," said Grace, very much relieved. "Well, then, he was a man not over forty, thin, and with bony fingers; an enormous gold ring on the little finger of his right hand. He wore a suit of tweed, all one color, rather tight, and a vulgar neck-handkerchief, almost crimson. He had a face like a corpse, and very thin lips. But the most remarkable things were his eyes and his eyebrows. His eyes were never still, and his brows were very black, and not shaped like other people's; they were neither straight, like Julia Clifford's, for instance, nor arched like Walter's; that is to say, they were arched, but all on one side. Each brow began quite high up on the temple, and then came down in a slanting drop to the bridge of the nose, and lower than the bridge. There, if you will give me a pencil I will draw you one of his eyebrows in a minute."