'A'm a 'cute old badger when need be.
Come for thy watch in a couple o' days, and a'll tell yo' all as a've learnt.' So Hester went away, her heart beating with the promise of knowing something about Philip,--how much, how little, in these first moments, she dared not say even to herself.

Some sailor newly landed from distant seas might have become possessed of Philip's watch in far-off latitudes; in which case, Philip would be dead.

That might be.

She tried to think that this was the most probable way of accounting for the watch.

She could be certain as to the positive identity of the watch--being in William Darley's possession.