'Now, my little woman must be reasonable,' said Mr Openshaw, who was always patient with Ailsie. 'There was no man in the house last night at all. No man comes into the house, as you know, if you think; much less goes up into the nursery. But sometimes we dream something has happened, and the dream is so like reality, that you are not the first person, little woman, who has stood out that the thing has really happened.'
'But, indeed, it was not a dream!' said Ailsie, beginning to cry.
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.'