It was impossible to put Mr.Franklin off with the excuse of the Sergeant being in my room, composing his mind.

I told him exactly what had happened, mentioning particularly what my lady's maid and the house-maid had said about Rosanna Spearman.
Mr.Franklin's clear head saw the turn the Sergeant's suspicions had taken, in the twinkling of an eye.
"Didn't you tell me this morning," he said, "that one of the tradespeople declared he had met Rosanna yesterday, on the footway to Frizinghall, when we supposed her to be ill in her room ?" "Yes, sir." "If my aunt's maid and the other woman have spoken the truth, you may depend upon it the tradesman did meet her.

The girl's attack of illness was a blind to deceive us.

She had some guilty reason for going to the town secretly.

The paint-stained dress is a dress of hers; and the fire heard crackling in her room at four in the morning was a fire lit to destroy it.