Then he began to open it and take it to pieces, in order to ascertain the nature of the mischief.
Suddenly he heard her catch her breath with a checked sound of surprise.

He looked at her from above his spectacles; she was holding a watch in her hand which she had just taken up off the counter.
'What's amiss wi' thee now ?' said Darley.

'Hast ta niver seen a watch o' that mak' afore?
or is it them letters on t' back, as is so wonderful ?' Yes, it was those letters--that interlaced, old-fashioned cipher.
That Z.H.that she knew of old stood for Zachary Hepburn, Philip's father.

She knew how Philip valued this watch.

She remembered having seen it in his hands the very day before his disappearance, when he was looking at the time in his annoyance at Sylvia's detention in her walk with baby.