“O, quarrels, were there? Can you tell me of any particular quarrel, now?”
“I could——” began the housekeeper, and stopped.
“Come, Mrs. Bingley,” said her master. “You must speak out without fear or favour.”
“I know it, sir,” said the housekeeper, distressed. “I will try to do my duty.”
“Hey!” cried the General. “Of course you must. You wouldn’t want to risk hanging the wrong man? What particular quarrel—hey?”
“It was between Mr. Cleghorn and the Baron’s gentleman, sir.”
“Cleghorn, eh? Great Scott! Was he sweet on the girl?”
“I think for some time he had greatly admired her, sir. And then Mr. Cabanis came; and being a young man, with ways different from ours——” again she hesitated.
“Out with it!” cried Sir Calvin. “Don’t keep anything back.”
“On the night before—before the deed,” said the housekeeper, with an effort, “Annie had come down into the kitchen, I was told, red with fury over Mr. Cabanis having tried to kiss her. She had boxed his ears for him, she said, and he had looked murder at her for it. He came down himself later on, I understand, and there was a fine scene between the two men. It was renewed the next day at dinner, when Annie wasn’t there, and in the end, after having come to blows and been separated, they both went out, Cabanis first, and Mr. Cleghorn a little later. That is the truth, sir, and now may I go?”