“He did not approve of that engagement?” went on the coroner, though he seemed to be stating a fact, rather than asking a question.
“He did not,” returned Miss Lloyd, and her color rose as she observed the intense interest manifest among her hearers.
“And the subject was discussed at the dinner table?”
“It was.”
“What was the tenor of the conversation?”
“To the effect that I must break the engagement.”
“Which you refused to do?”
“I did.”
Her cheeks were scarlet now, but a determined note had crept into her voice, and she looked at her betrothed husband with an air of affectionate pride that, it seemed to me, ought to lift any man into the seventh heaven. But I noted Mr. Hall's expression with surprise. Instead of gazing adoringly at this girl who was thus publicly proving her devotion to him, he sat with eyes cast down, and frowning—positively frowning—while his fingers played nervously with his watch-chain.
Surely this case required my closest attention, for I place far more confidence in deductions from facial expression and tones of the voice, than from the discovery of small, inanimate objects.