but the merest film of a hope it destroyed, for she KNEW that her
brother was guilty. George and she now felt that they were linked by
the possession of a common, secret.

But the cloak had been found a short time before, and was in the
possession of Emmeline's mother. That mother was a woman of strong
passions and determined character. The first shock of the
catastrophe over, her grief was almost supplanted by a rage for
vengeance, in the compassing of which no doubt she vaguely imagined
she would be doing something to right her daughter. Hence the
protracted concealment of the murderer was bitterness to her soul,
and she vowed herself to discovery and revenge as the one business
of her life. In this her husband, a good deal broken by the fearful
event, but still more by misfortunes of another kind which had begun
to threaten him, offered her no assistance, and indeed felt neither
her passion urge him, nor her perseverance hold him to the pursuit.

In the neighbourhood her mind was well known, and not a few found
their advantage in supplying her passion with the fuel of hope. Any
hint of evidence, however small, the remotest suggestion even
towards discovery, they would carry at once to her, for she was an
open-handed woman, and in such case would give with a profusion
that, but for the feeling concerned, would have been absurd, and did
expose her to the greed of every lying mendicant within reach of
her. Not unnaturally, therefore, it had occurred to a certain
collier to make his way to the bottom of the shaft, on the
chance--hardly of finding, but of being enabled to invent something
worth reporting; and there, to the very fooling of his barren
expectation, he had found the cloak.