If the weaver was dead, who had a right to his money?
Who would know where his money was hidden?
_Who would know that anybody had come to take it away ?_ He went no farther into the subtleties of evidence: the pressing question, "Where _is_ the money ?" now took such entire possession of him as to make him quite forget that the weaver's death was not a certainty.

A dull mind, once arriving at an inference that flatters a desire, is rarely able to retain the impression that the notion from which the inference started was purely problematic.

And Dunstan's mind was as dull as the mind of a possible felon usually is.

There were only three hiding-places where he had ever heard of cottagers' hoards being found: the thatch, the bed, and a hole in the floor.

Marner's cottage had no thatch; and Dunstan's first act, after a train of thought made rapid by the stimulus of cupidity, was to go up to the bed; but while he did so, his eyes travelled eagerly over the floor, where the bricks, distinct in the fire-light, were discernible under the sprinkling of sand.