“Did you hear, or think you heard, her come in again?”
There was a pause. Then Nell whispered:
“Yes.”
“When was it?”
“It was—a long while after, just before I took the tea into the dining-room.”
Sir Neville laid down the pen which he had been holding, clasped his hands and looked over his writing-table at her, with an air of exasperation.
“Now, my dear girl, why on earth didn’t you tell the coroner that?”
“I couldn’t have told them that in my answers to their questions,” answered Nell, earnestly. “Don’t you remember that all they asked me was whether I had been outside the house, not whether I had heard anybody else go in or out?”
Sir Neville did remember. He asked one more question.
“I have heard a report that a canvas bag containing the money collected for the shipwrecked sailors, on the night before your uncle went out of his mind, was found in your room. Is that true?”