Just then Mr and Mrs Chadwick came down, looking grave and discomposed.  All during breakfast-time they were silent and uncomfortable.  As soon as the breakfast things were taken away, and the children had been carried upstairs, Mr Chadwick began, in an evidently preconcerted manner, to inquire if his nephew was certain that all his servants were honest; for, that Mrs Chadwick had that morning missed a very valuable brooch, which she had worn the day before.  She remembered taking it off when she came home from Buckingham Palace.  Mr Openshaw’s face contracted into hard lines; grew like what it was before he had known his wife and her child.  He rang the bell, even before his uncle had done speaking.  It was answered by the housemaid.

‘Mary, was anyone here last night, while we were away?’

‘A man, sir, came to speak to Norah.’

‘To speak to Norah!  Who was he?  How long did he stay?’

’I’m sure I can’t tell, sir.  He came—­perhaps about nine.  I went up to tell Norah in the nursery, and she came down to speak to him.  She let him out, sir.  She will know who he was, and how long he stayed.’

She waited a moment to be asked any more questions, but she was not, so she went away.

A minute afterwards Mr Openshaw made as though he were going out of the room; but his wife laid her hand on his arm.

‘Do not speak to her before the children,’ she said, in her low, quiet voice.  ‘I will go up and question her.’

‘No!  I must speak to her.  You must know,’ said he, turning to his uncle and aunt, ’my missus has an old servant, as faithful as ever woman was, I do believe, as far as love goes,—­but at the same time, who does not speak truth, as even the missus must allow.  Now, my notion is, that this Norah of ours has been come over by some good-for-nothing chap (for she’s at the time o’ life when they say women pray for husbands—­“any, good Lord, any”) and has let him into our house, and the chap has made off with your brooch, and m’appen many another thing beside.  It’s only saying that Norah is soft-hearted and doesn’t stick at a white lie—­that’s all, missus.’

It was curious to notice how his tone, his eyes, his whole face was changed, as he spoke to his wife; but he was the resolute man through all.  She knew better than to oppose him; so she went upstairs, and told Norah that her master wanted to speak to her, and that she would take care of the children in the meanwhile.

Norah rose to go, without a word.  Her thoughts were these: 

’If they tear me to pieces, they shall never know through me.  He may come—­and then, just Lord have mercy upon us all! for some of us are dead folk to a certainty.  But he shall do it; not me.’

You may fancy, now, her look of determination, as she faced her master alone in the dining-room; Mr and Mrs Chadwick having left the affair in their nephew’s hands, seeing that he took it up with such vehemence.