“I don’t know who it was. It had nothing to do with me, but I was sorry for the girl because of everyone turning against her, including her sister, and I tried to give her a little pleasure when I could.”
That was all right. Very sympathetically told. The public quite liked this pleasing specimen of English cricket-, golf- and football-loving manhood. Subsequently Mr. Lydgate admitted meeting Mary on December 26th and January 1st, but he swore most emphatically that that was the last he ever saw of her.
“ ‘You swear to that, Mr. Lydgate?’ asked the coroner”
“But the 23rd of January,” here insinuated the coroner; “you made an appointment with the deceased then?”
“Certainly not,” he replied.
“But you met her on that day?”
“Most emphatically no,” he replied quietly. “I went down to Edbrooke Castle, my brother’s place in Lincolnshire, on the 20th of last month, and only got back to town about three days ago.”
“You swear to that, Mr. Lydgate?” asked the coroner.
“I do, indeed, and there are a score of witnesses to bear me out. The family, the house-party, the servants.”