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“This looks suspicious,” said Mr. Chadwick.”It is not the way in which an honest person would have acted.”

Mr. Openshaw kept silence. He was sorely perplexed. But Mrs. Openshaw turned round on Mr. Chadwick with a sudden fierceness no one ever saw in her before.

“You don’t know Norah, uncle. She is gone because she is deeply hurt at being suspected. Oh, I wish I had seen her, that I had spoken to her myself. She would have told me any thing.” Alice wrung her hands.

“I must confess,” continued Mr. Chadwick to his nephew, in a lower voice, “I can’t make you out. You used to be a word and a blow, and oftenest the blow first; and now, when there is every cause for suspicion, you just do naught. Your missus is a very good woman, I grant, but she may have been put upon as well as other folk, I suppose. If you don’t send for the police, I shall.”

“Very well,” replied Mr. Openshaw, surlily; “I can’t clear Norah. She won’t clear herself, as I believe she might if she would. Only I wash my hands of it, for I am sure the woman herself is honest. and she lived a long time with my wife, and I don’t like her to come to shame.”

“But she will then be forced to clear herself. That, at any rate, will be a good thing.”

“Very well, very well. I am heart-sick of the whole business. Come, Alice, come up to the babies; they’ll be in a sore way. I tell you, uncle,” he said, turning round once more to Mr. Chadwick, suddenly and sharply, after his eye had fallen on Alice’s wan, tearful, anxious face, “I’ll have no sending for the police, after all. I’ll buy my aunt twice as handsome a brooch this very day, but I’ll not have Norah suspected and my missus plagued. There’s for you!”

He and his wife left the room. Mr. Chadwick quietly waited till he was out of hearing, and then said to his wife, “For all Tom’s heroics, I’m just quietly going for a detective, wench. Thou need’st know naught about it.”

He went to the police-station, and made a statement of the case. He was gratified by the impression which the evidence against Norah seemed to make. The men all agreed in his opinion, and steps were to be immediately taken to find out where she was. Most probably, as they suggested, she had gone at once to the man, who, to all appearance, was her lover. When Mr. Chadwick asked how they would find her out, they smiled, shook their heads, and spoke of mysterious but infallible ways and means. He returned to his nephew’s house with a very comfortable opinion of his own sagacity. He was met by his wife with a penitent face:

“Oh, master, I’ve found my brooch! It was just sticking by its pin in the flounce of my brown silk, that I wore yesterday. I took it off in a hurry, and it must have caught in it; and I hung up my gown in the closet. Just now, when I was going to fold it up, there was the brooch! I’m very vexed, but I never dreamed but what it was lost.”

Her husband, muttering something very like “Confound thee and thy brooch too! I wish I’d never given it thee,” snatched up his hat and rushed back to the station, hoping to be in time to stop the police from searching for Norah. But a detective was already gone off on the errand.

Where was Norah? Half mad with the strain of the fearful secret, she had hardly slept through the night for thinking what must be done. Upon this terrible state of mind had come Ailsie’s questions, showing that she had seen the man, as the unconscious child called her father. Lastly came the suspicion of her honesty. She was little less than crazy as she ran up stairs and dashed on her bonnet and shawl, leaving all else, even her purse, behind her. In that house she would not stay. That was all she knew or was clear about. She would not even see the children again, for fear it should weaken her. She dreaded, above every thing, Mr. Frank’s return to claim his wife. She could not tell what remedy there was for a sorrow so tremendous, for her to stay to witness. The desire of escaping from the coming event was a stronger motive for her departure than her soreness about the suspicions directed against her, although this last had been the final goad to the course she took. She walked away almost at headlong speed, sobbing as she went, as she had not dared to do during the past night, for fear of exciting wonder in those who might hear her. Then she stopped. An idea came into her mind that she would leave London altogether, and betake herself to her native town of Liverpool. She felt in her pocket for her purse as she drew near the Euston Square station with this intention. She had left it at home. Her poor head aching, her eyes swollen with crying, she had to stand still and think, as well as she could, where next she should bend her steps. Suddenly the thought flashed into her mind that she would go and find out poor Mr. Frank. She had been hardly kind to him the night before, though her heart had bled for him ever since. She remembered his telling her, when she inquired for his address, almost as she had pushed him out of the door, of some hotel in a street not far distant from Euston Square. Thither she went; with what intention she scarcely knew, but to assuage her conscience by telling him how much she pitied him. In her present state she felt herself unfit to counsel, or restrain, or assist, or do aught else but sympathize and weep. The people of the inn said such a person had been there; had arrived only the day before; had gone out soon after his arrival, leaving his luggage in their care, but had never come back. Norah asked for leave to sit down and await the gentleman’s return. The landlady–pretty secure in the deposit of luggage against any probable injury–showed her into a room, and quietly locked the door on the outside. Norah was utterly worn out, and fell asleep–a shivering, starting, uneasy slumber, which lasted for hours.