“Now, mind!” she exclaimed, turning back on her way to the door, and looking shrewdly at me, with her forefinger up again. “I have some reason to suspect, from what I have heard⁠—my ears are always open; I can’t afford to spare what powers I have⁠—that they are gone abroad. But if ever they return, if ever any one of them returns, while I am alive, I am more likely than another, going about as I do, to find it out soon. Whatever I know, you shall know. If ever I can do anything to serve the poor betrayed girl, I will do it faithfully, please Heaven! And Littimer had better have a bloodhound at his back, than little Mowcher!”

I placed implicit faith in this last statement, when I marked the look with which it was accompanied.