She had no experience, nor knowledge, even by hearsay, of what professional charges of this sort should be, for the two experts and the professor of geology whom she had engaged, in order to get independent opinion, had not yet rendered any account to her. But she remembered that they would certainly come in, and that she would just as certainly have to pay them, whatever they might amount to, for she had definitely engaged the three men, from whom they would come, writing to request their attendance with her own hand. "And if them three charge as these two has," she growled, looking black at what Mortimer demanded on one sheet of paper, and Farebrother on the other, "it'll come to a nice lot!--a deal more nor ever I expected. And as if they'd ever done aught for it! I'm sure that there Mortimer never did naught but stand about them sheds, wi' his hands in his pockets, smokin' cigars without end--why it's as if he were chargin' me so many guineas for every cigar he smoked! And if these is what minin' engineers' professional charges is, it's going to cost me a pretty penny before even we've got that coal up and make aught out of it!" No answer, verbal or otherwise, went back from Miss Farnish to the London gentlemen at the "Coach-and-Four" that day. But, early next morning, Jeckie, who had spent much time in thinking hard since the previous noon, got into her pony-tray (an eminently useful if not remarkably stylish equipage) and drove away from the village. Anyone who had observed her closely might have seen that she was in a preoccupied and designing mood. She drove through Sicaster, and away into the mining district beyond, and after journeying for several miles, came to Heronshawe Main, an exceedingly flourishing and prosperous colliery which was the sole property of Mr. Matthew Revis, and was situated on and beneath a piece of land of unusually black and desolate aspect. Revis, a self-made man, bluff, downright, rough of speech, had had business dealings with Jeckie Farnish in the past in respect of some property in which each was interested, and of late she had consulted him once or twice as to the prospects of her new venture; she had also induced him to drive over to Savilestowe during the progress of the experimental boring. She wanted his advice now, and she went straight to his offices at the colliery. She had been there before, and on each occasion had come away building castles in the air as regards her projected development of Savilestowe. For to sit in Revis's handsome, almost luxurious private room, looking out on the evidences of industry and wealth, to see from its windows the hundreds of grimy-faced colliers, going away from their last shift, was an encouragement in itself to go on with her own schemes. Already she saw at Savilestowe what she actually looked on at Heronshawe Main, and herself and Lucilla Grice mistresses of an army of men whose arms would bear treasure out of the earth--for them.