To my unutterable astonishment, just as my hand was on the door, it was suddenly opened from the inside, and out walked Rosanna Spearman! After the library had been swept and cleaned in the morning, neither first nor second housemaid had any business in that room at any later period of the day.

I stopped Rosanna Spearman, and charged her with a breach of domestic discipline on the spot.
"What might you want in the library at this time of day ?" I inquired.
"Mr.Franklin Blake dropped one of his rings up-stairs," says Rosanna; "and I have been into the library to give it to him." The girl's face was all in a flush as she made me that answer; and she walked away with a toss of her head and a look of self-importance which I was quite at a loss to account for.

The proceedings in the house had doubtless upset all the women-servants more or less; but none of them had gone clean out of their natural characters, as Rosanna, to all appearance, had now gone out of hers.
I found Mr.Franklin writing at the library-table.

He asked for a conveyance to the railway station the moment I entered the room.

The first sound of his voice informed me that we now had the resolute side of him uppermost once more.