Mrs. Spencer made use of a certain word which is always pronounced in a certain way by educated people, and in another way by people who are only partially educated. Norah Burton had pronounced this particular word in the same way as Stella.
Hugh had commented upon the fact to Pomfret, and that easy-going young man had remarked to him that he failed to see it much mattered, that she was at liberty to pronounce the word as she thought fit.
When he got home, he passed a very restless night. When he had gone up into the drawingroom after dinner, he had been half prepared to dismiss the matter from his mind as a mere fantasy. And then had come his brief interview with Laura Crichton, in which she gave him plainly to understand that, in her opinion, Stella Spencer was not a good or a straight woman.
And then had come that corroborative little piece of evidence of the mispronunciation of a certain word, establishing another link in the chain of evidence that Stella Keane and Norah Burton were one and the same person.
And if it were so, what was his duty? If he could prove her to be Norah Burton, and her undesirable relative, George Burton, now freed from jail, could he permit such an adventuress to pass another day in the house of this honest gentleman whom she had so skilfully entrapped, as six years ago she had entrapped the guileless and trusting Jack Pomfret?
The morning dawned and found him still in the throes of anxious thought.
CHAPTER XVI
As Murchison thought over matters in the cold, clear light of the morning, when the brain is at its freshest, he cursed the fate that ever seemed to mix him up in the private affairs of his friends. First had been that unhappy episode of poor Jack Pomfret, who had not strength of mind to survive the disgrace he had brought upon himself by his impetuous folly.