Fletcher Hill was facing her as she entered, a tall man, tough and
muscular, with black hair that was tinged with grey, and a long stubborn
jaw that gave him an indomitable look. His lips were thin and very firm,
with a sardonic twist that imparted a faintly supercilious expression.
His eyes were dark, deep-set, and shrewd. He was a magistrate of some
repute in the district, a position which he had attained by sheer
unswerving hard work in the police force, in which for years he had
been known as "Bloodhound Hill." A man of rigid ideas and stern justice,
he had forced his way to the front, respected by all, but genuinely liked
by only a very few.

Jack Burton had regarded him as a friend for years, but even Jack could
not claim a very close intimacy with him. He merely understood the man's
silences better than most. His words were very rarely of a confidential
order.

He was emphatically not a man to attract any girl very readily, and Dot's
attitude towards him had always been of a strictly impersonal nature. In
fact, Jack himself did not know whether she really liked him or not. Yet
had he set his heart upon seeing her safely married to him. There was no
other man of his acquaintance to whom he would willingly have entrusted
her. For Dot was very precious in his eyes. But to his mind Fletcher Hill
was worthy of her, and he believed that she would be as safe in his care
as in his own.

That Fletcher Hill had long cherished the silent ambition of winning her
was a fact well known to him. Only once had they ever spoken on the
subject, and then the words had been few and briefly uttered. But to
Jack, who had taken the initiative in the matter, they had been more than