“Only a month or so.”
“I suppose,” she continued, “you know the names of most of the principal families round here. A good many of them would call upon you, no doubt?”
“I believe I know most of them, by name at any rate,” I told her.
“Do you know any family of the name of Maltabar?” she asked—“particularly a man called Philip Maltabar?”
I shook my head at once with a sense of relief which I could not altogether conceal.
“No, I never heard it in my life,” I answered. “I am quite sure that there is no family of that name of any consequence around here. I must have heard it, and it is too uncommon a one to be overlooked.”
The brief light died out of her face. She was evidently disappointed.
“You are quite sure?”
“Absolutely certain.”