Sophia by Stanley J. Weyman

Mrs. Northey was no novice. She knew something of intrigue, something of her sex. Her first step was to discharge Sophia's woman, a village maid, who had come with her young mistress from the country. The key of the offender's chamber was then intrusted to madam's own woman, Mrs. Martha, a sour spinster, matured not by years only, but by an unfortunate experience of the other sex, which secured her from the danger of erring on the side of leniency where they were concerned. Mr. Northey could not immediately leave London, therefore it was necessary that arrangements for the culprit's transport to the surer custody of Aunt Leah at Chalkhill should be postponed, but all that Mrs. Northey could do short of this she did. And these dispositions made, she prepared to await events with a mind tolerably at ease.

In every net, however, there are meshes, and small is the mesh through which a large fish cannot escape. It is probable that poor blubbering Dolly, the dismissed maid, innocent as she declared herself, was in somebody's pay, and knew where information could be sold. For before Sophia had been confined to her room for four hours, before the first passionate tears were dried on her cheeks, a clock-maker, who had come in to regulate the tall clock on the stairs, made the odd mistake of mounting, when no one was looking, to the second floor. A moment later a fingernail scraped Sophia's door, a note was thrust under it, and deftly as he had come, the workman, a pale, fat, elderly man, crept down again. He made little noise, for, to save his honour's drugget, he had left his boots in the hall.