"I have more serious difficulties before me than the difficulty of leaving York, and the difficulty of finding my way to the stage." "You don't say so! I am all attention; pray explain yourself!" She considered her next words carefully before they passed her lips.
"There are certain inquiries," she said, "which I am interested in making.

If I undertook them myself, I should excite the suspicion of the person inquired after, and should learn little or nothing of what I wish to know.

If the inquiries could be made by a stranger, without my being seen in the matter, a service would be rendered me of much greater importance than the service you offered last night." Captain Wragge's vagabond face became gravely and deeply attentive.
"May I ask," he said, "what the nature of the inquiries is likely to be ?" Magdalen hesitated.

She had necessarily mentioned Michael Vanstone's name in informing the captain of the loss of her inheritance.

She must inevitably mention it to him again if she employed his services.
He would doubtless discover it for himself, by a plain process of inference, before she said many words more, frame them as carefully as she might.