as if examining the indications of the strata. Was it possible?
Could it be? There was a piece of black something that was not coal,
and seemed textile! It was a half-mask, for there were the
eye-holes in it! He caught it up and hurried it into his bag--not so
quickly but that the haste set his guide speculating. And Bascombe
saw that the action was noted. The man afterwards offered to carry
his bag, but he would not allow him.

The next morning he left the place and returned to London, taking
Glaston, by a detour, on his way. A few questions to Leopold drew
from him a description of the mask he had worn, entirely
corresponding with the one George had found; and at length he was
satisfied that there was truth more than a little in Leopold's
confession. It was not his business, however, he now said to
himself, to set magistrates right. True, he had set Mr. Hooker wrong
in the first place, but he had done it in good faith, and how could
he turn traitor to Helen and her brother? Besides, he was sure the
magistrate himself would be anything but obliged to him for opening
his eyes! At the same time Leopold's fanatic eagerness after
confession might drive the matter further, and if so, it might
become awkward for him. He might be looked to for the defence, and
were he not certain that his guide had marked his concealment of
what he had picked up, he might have ventured to undertake it, for
certainly it would have been a rare chance for a display of the
forensic talent he believed himself to possess; but as it was, the
moment he was called to the bar--which would be within a
fortnight--he would go abroad, say to Paris, and there, for twelve
months or so, await events.

When he disclosed to Helen his evil success in the coalpit, it was