A Fair Fraud — page 70: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

A Fair Fraud 59 play the eavesdropper, and yet from where she crouched she could not only plainly hear every word they spoke, but owing to several spaces and gaps in the thinly-formed walls she could also distinctly see the two people who occupied the seat. She looked about her helplessly for a means of escape, but there was a thick growth of tall holly bushes im- mediately at her back, and, short of betray ing herself by emerging at the side of the summer- house, she could not get away from her com- promising position, and if she were to creep away now, Mrs Lane might very properly accuse her of dishonourably hiding herself in order to listen. In her dilemma and perplexity Marion did the only possible thing she could do—that is, she remained where she was; and much against her own desire she both saw and heard. * with a most unpleasant and cunning cast of countenance, with a scar across one cheek, only partially concealed by the first growth of a stubble of grey beard and moustache. His hat was pulled down so low over his ears that very little hair was to be seen, but that little was presumably grey. From his rusty and stained clothes he appeared to be in poor cir- cumstances, yet he did not look quite like a What she saw was a man past middle life, WOO 4 (G' O)