“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.
“But there is one thing that I still cannot understand,” replied the baronet, “which is, that the disappearance of Miss Gourlay was never mentioned to me until I inquired for her maid, whom I wished to speak with.”