Sir Thomas waved his hand.  “Go,” he added, “send her here.”

“D—­n the old scoundrel,” thought Gibson to himself; “but that’s a fine piece of acting.  Why, if he hadn’t been aware of it all along he would have thrown me clean out of the window, even as the messenger of such tidings.  However, he is not so deep as he thinks himself.  We know him—­see through him—­on this subject at least.”

When Nancy entered, her master gave her one of those stern, searching looks which often made his unfortunate menials tremble before him.

“What’s your name, my good girl?”

“Nancy Forbes, sir.”

“How long have you been in this family?”

“I’m in the first month of my second quarter, your honor,” with a courtesy.

“You are a pretty girl.”

Nancy, with another courtesy, and a simper, which vanity, for the life of her, could not suppress, “Oh la, sir, how could your honor say such a thing of a humble girl like me?  You that sees so many handsome great ladies.”

“Have you a sweetheart?”

Nancy fairly tittered.  “Is it me, sir—­why, who would think of the like of me?  Not one, sir, ever I had.”

“Because, if you have,” he proceeded, “and that I approve of him, I wouldn’t scruple much to give you something that might enable you and your husband to begin the world with comfort.”

“I’m sure it’s very kind, your honor, but I never did anything to desarve so much goodness at your honor’s hands.”

“The old villain wants to bribe me for something,” thought Nancy.

“Well, but you may, my good girl.  I think you are a favorite with Miss Gourlay?”

“Ha, ha!” thought Nancy, “I am sure of it now.”

“That’s more than I know, sir,” she replied.  “Miss Gourlay—­God bless and protect her—­was kind to every one; and not more so to me than to the other servants.”

“I have just been informed by Gibson, that she and her maid left the Hall on Tuesday night last.  Now, answer me truly, and you shall be the better for it.  Have you any conception, any suspicion, let us say, where they have gone to?”

“La, sir, sure your honor ought to know that better than me.”

“How so, my pretty girl?  How should I know it?  She told me nothing about it.”

“Why, wasn’t it your honor and Tom Gillespie that took her away in the carriage on that very night?”

Here now was wit against wit, or at least cunning against cunning.  Nancy, the adroit, hazarded an assertion of which she was not certain, in order to probe the baronet, and place him in a position by which she might be able by his conduct and manner to satisfy herself whether her suspicions were well-founded or not.

“But how do you know, my good girl, that I and Gillespie were out that night?”

It is unnecessary to repeat here circumstances with which the reader is already acquainted.  Nancy gave him the history of Mrs. Morgan’s sudden illness, and all the other facts already mentioned.