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Norah had sat down. She trembled too much to stand. He took her hands in his. He squeezed them hard, as if, by physical pressure, the truth could be wrung out.

“Norah.” This time his tone was calm, stagnant as despair.”She has married again!”

Norah shook her head sadly. The grasp slowly relaxed. The man had fainted.

There was brandy in the room. Norah forced some drops into Mr. Frank’s mouth, chafed his hands, and–when mere animal life returned before the mind poured in its flood of memories and thoughts–she lifted him up, and rested his head against her knees. Then she put a few crumbs of bread, taken from the supper-table, soaked in brandy, into his mouth. Suddenly he sprang to his feet.

“Where is she? Tell me this instant.” He looked so wild, so mad, so desperate, that Norah felt herself to be in bodily danger; but her time of dread had gone by. She had been afraid to tell him the truth, and then she had been a coward. Now her wits were sharpened by the sense of his desperate state. He must leave the house. She would pity him afterward, but now she must rather command and upbraid, for he must leave the house before her mistress came home. That one necessity stood dear before her.

“She is not here; that is enough for you to know. Nor can I say exactly where she is” (which was true to the letter, if not to the spirit).”Go away, and tell me where to find you to-morrow, and I will tell you all. My master and mistress may come back at any minute, and then what would become of me, with a strange man in the house?”

Such an argument was too petty to touch his excited mind.

“I don’t care for your master and mistress. If your master is a man, he must feel for me–poor shipwrecked sailor that I am–kept for years a prisoner among savages, always, always, always thinking of my wife and my home–dreaming of her by night, talking to her, though she could not hear, by day. I loved her more than all heaven and earth put together. Tell me where she is, this instant, you wretched woman, who salved over her wickedness to her as you do to me!”

The clock struck ten. Desperate positions require desperate measures.

“If you will leave the house now, I will come to you to-morrow and tell you all. What is more, you shall see your c
hild now. She lies sleeping up stairs. Oh, sir, you have a child–you do not know that as yet–a little weakly girl, with just a heart and soul beyond her years. We have reared her up with such care! We watched her, for we thought for many a year she might die any day, and we tended her, and no hard thing has come near her, and no rough word has ever been said to her. And now you come and will take her life into your hand, and will crush it. Strangers to her have been kind to her; but her own father–Mr. Frank, I am her nurse, and I love her, and I tend her, and I would do any thing for her that I could. Her mother’s heart beats as hers beats; and, if she suffers a pain, her mother trembles all over. If she is happy, it is her mother that smiles and is glad. If she is growing stronger, her mother is healthy; if she dwindles, her mother languishes. If she dies–well, I don’t know; it is not every one can lie down and die when they wish it. Come up stairs, Mr. Frank, and see your child. Seeing her will do good to your poor heart. Then go away, in God’s name, just this one night; to-morrow, if need be, you can do any thing–kill us all if you will, or show yourself a great, grand man, whom God will bless forever and ever. Come, Mr. Frank, the look of a sleeping child is sure to give peace.”