The man seemed to be scowling savagely at him, or else it was the shadow cast by the porch as he stood listening to his chief's words, nodding from time to time. "You understand: no one is to inspect the mine without my permission. No one is to have any information given to him whatever." "Yes, I understand," growled Sturgess. "I shall hold you accountable." The man made no reply, and Clive continued his walk of two miles more over the hills, to the farmhouse where he lodged temporarily. "Hold me accountable, eh?" muttered Sturgess; and he went in and shut the door, to throw himself into a chair and sit gnawing portions of his thick beard. That night, when the mine gap was dark and still, a lanthorn was visible swinging here and there as it was borne towards the mouth of the pit, where it disappeared in the cage, and a dark shadowy figure followed it. "Sit fast!" "Stop!" came in a husky whisper; "how are we to get back?" "I can manage that. Not afraid, are you?" "Afraid!" was the scornful reply. "All right, then. Now, down." The ingenious mechanism was started, and the two men, with their lanthorn, descended swiftly into the bowels of the earth, while a perfectly-balanced empty cage rose to take its fellow's place. "Any one likely to come and surprise us?" said the man who had been told to sit fast. "Not likely. There! you shall see for yourself. But that's it. You can't better it. A blind lead." CHAPTER NINETEEN. JESSOP AND CO. AT HOME. "No, my dear, I'm not going to play the tragedy parent and talk about cursing and all that sort of thing. I'm only a plain matter-of-fact Englishman, leading too busy a life to be bothered. You write to me, and call me my dear father and talk of affection--my affectionate daughter; but how do I know that you are not still under the influence of the man whom you have chosen for your husband? How do I know that he has not said to you that you had better try and make it up with the old man, because the old man's money may be useful one of these days? Mind, I don't say that you have so base and sordid an idea; but I give him the credit of being moved in this spirit. I am glad to hear that you are well, and of course I wish you to be perfectly happy; but you proved to me that you thought you could run alone, so I feel that my responsibility as a father has ceased. I can't reproach myself with any lapses. I did my duty by you; with your liking to the front. I chose you a husband--a good fellow, who would have made you happy; but you chose to flirt with a scoundrel and let him delude you even to making a disgraceful elopement, so you must take your course. Let him see this letter by all means, and thoroughly gauge my opinion of him. If he amends, and behaves well to you, perhaps some day I may accede to what you propose, and receive you both here. But he will have to alter a good deal first. I have no enmity against you, Heaven forbid! for I do