"I can't say. Why do you ask?"
"I'll tell you later. Go on, please."
"Well, then, Mrs. Krill always revenged herself on her husband when he was sober and timid, so the couple were evenly matched. Krill was master when drunk, and his wife mistress when he was sober. A kind of see-saw sort of life they must have led."
"Where does Lady Rachel come in?"
"What an impatient chap you are," remonstrated Hurd, in a friendly tone. "I'm coming to that now. Lady Rachel quarrelled with her father over some young artist she wanted to marry. He would not allow the lover to come to the Hall, so Lady Rachel said she would kill herself rather than give him up."
"And she did," said Paul, thinking of the suicide theory.
"There you go again. How am I to tell you all when you interrupt."
"I beg your pardon. I won't do so again."
Hurd nodded smilingly and continued. "One night—it was dark and stormy—Lady Rachel had a row royal with her father. Then she ran out of the Hall saying her father would never see her alive again. She may have intended to commit suicide certainly, or she may have intended to join her lover in London. But whatever she intended to do, the rain cooled her. She staggered into Christchurch and fell down insensible at the door of 'The Red Pig.' Mrs. Krill brought her indoors and laid her on a bed."
"Did she know who the lady was?"