“What is it, Mrs. Beach⁠—speak low⁠— Mrs. Byrne’s asleep.”

“It’s Emily, sir, if you please, sir, turned half-past eleven now, sir, and she’s not in the house. I didn’t speak before, sir, thinking she might have slipped out like for a bit of a turn and met a friend like. She weren’t in the kitchen, sir, when I come in, nor in the bedroom neither. I thought perhaps as how you’d seen her, sir, when you come in and sent her on a herrand like. What had I best do sir shall I lock up sir it’s late for a young girl and gone out without her mack too.”

Mrs. Beach concluded her remarks with a long, unpunctuated peroration as if fearful that her scanty wind should fail altogether before she had fully delivered herself.

Stephen thought rapidly. Had he sent Emily out on a “herrand,” or had he not seen her at all?