to keep me from
rescuing my father--"

"What! did the ruffian lay hands on you?"

"That he did, and so did Mr. Bartley. But the villain was the leader of
it all; and while he was struggling with me--"

"You were taking stock of him? Well, they talk of a Jew's eye; give me a
woman's. My dear, the second-hand description is not worth a button. I
must write fresh notices from yours, and, above all, instruct the
detectives. You have given me information that will lead to that man's
capture. As for the gold ring and the tweed suit, they disappeared into
space when my placard went up, you may be sure of that, and a felon can
paint his face. But his eyes and eyebrows will do him. They are the mark
of a jail-bird. I am a visiting justice, and have often noticed the
peculiarity. Draw me his eyebrows, and we will photograph them in Derby;
and my detectives shall send copies to Scotland Yard and all the convict
prisons. We'll have him."

The Colonel paused suddenly in his triumphant prediction, and said, "But
what was that you let fall about Bartley? He was no party to this foul
crime. Why, he has worked night and day to save you and Hope. Indeed, you
both owe your lives to him."

"Indeed!"

"Yes. He set the men on to save you within ten minutes of the explosion.
He bought rope by the mile, and great iron buckets to carry up the debris
that was heaped up between you and the working party. He raved about the
pit day and night lamenting his daughter and his friend; and why I say he
saved you, 'twas he who advised Walter. I had this from Walter himself
before his fever came on. He advised and implored him not to attempt to
clear the whole shaft, but to pick sideways into the mine twenty feet
from the ground. He told Walter that he never really slept at night, and
in his dreams saw you in a part of the mine he calls the hall. Now,
Walter says that but for this advice they would have been two days more
getting to you."

"We should have been dead," said Grace, gravely. Then she reflected.

"Colonel Clifford," said she, "I listened to that villain and Mr. Bartley
planning my father's destruction. Certainly every word Mr. Bartley _said_
was against it. He spoke of it with horror. Yet, somehow or other, that
wretched man obtained from him an order to send the man Burnley down the
mine, and what will you think when I tell you that he assisted the
villain to hinder me from going to the mine?" Then she told him the whole
scene, and