Her mother clasped her to her heart. She could not speak.
'But,' said Jane, after a long pause, 'you might have escaped without him.'
'Yes, perhaps, but not so soon. Then Jack and I built up the entrance, so that none might find it till such time as he could come by night and flit all the goods away. He came on with me here.' Winefred looked towards the bed, 'I suppose the excitement of the night has been too much for the captain. And, O mother, it nearly killed you. You did seem frightened and ready to fall when I came upon you at the door. Mother, dear, I do not like the way his eyes watch us. Do let me put up a screen.'
'He cannot hurt you now.' Then, starting up, 'But, Winefred, you have not had anything to eat.' She looked at the clock; it had stopped. 'I do not know the hour.'
'That I can give,' said the girl. She went into her bedroom, if so the recess could be called under the stair, and produced the watch that had been left by her beneath her pillow.
'Who gave it you?' asked Jane, as she snatched the watch to her and turned it about. There was some enamelling on the back in blue and white.
'A gentleman gave it me. I should have told you before. Indeed, I intended to tell you yesterday, but you were in an ill-humour, and so I waited, and then the chance passed.'
'I have seen this watch before. I know it well,' said Jane in a muffled voice. Again a sense of giddiness came upon her. So much had occurred, such a rush of strange events had passed over her, such a storm of various emotions had torn her, that she hardly knew what was happening now, or was likely to happen next.
'There was a gentleman who came to me yesterday on the beach when I was picking up pebbles. He had very curled whiskers, and was sprucely dressed. He wore a fine hat and a green coat. He gave me the watch.'
'Did he say anything to you?' asked Jane in the same low, suppressed tone. She held the watch in her hand and turned it about.
'Yes, he spoke of you, mother; he continued asking about you, and what you were doing, and where you had been. He was strange in his manner.'
'No, but there are initials on the case, J. H.'
'It surely must be he!' said Mrs. Marley. 'He would at one time have given me the watch――it is the same; but I could not read the hours then; I have learned that since. It is he. Why did he not come to see me? Did he say he would do that?'
