“Do you mind telling me more exactly what you mean?”
“Until recently, Mr. Prinsep always behaved to me as if we were engaged. Lately, his manner to me had changed. When I spoke to him about it, he laughed it off, and I tried to go on treating him as I had done. But about a fortnight ago I had a letter from Mr. Carter Woodman—you know him, I expect—saying he would like to discuss with me certain matters placed in his hands by Mr. Prinsep. I wrote back saying that I could not conceive that there was anything in my relations with John that called for a lawyer’s interference. Then I took the letter to John, and we had a real quarrel about it. I asked him if I was to consider our engagement at an end; but he put me off, and before I could get him to answer we were interrupted. I did not see him again until Tuesday, and then only for a minute. I meant to try to clear matters up, and to tell him I could not go on like that; but he was called away, and I had no chance. Then in the evening George Brooklyn came to see me.”
“Will you tell me what happened then?”
“He asked me point-blank whether I had been engaged to John. I said that I certainly had been, but that I didn’t know whether I still was. I told him that I still loved John; but I asked him to let John know—he had promised to see him when he left me—that I considered our engagement definitely at an end, unless he desired to renew it.”
“Miss Lang, my questions must have been very painful, and it has been very good of you to answer them so freely. I think there is only one thing more I need ask. At what time did Mr. George Brooklyn leave you?”
“A few minutes after half-past ten. I went on the stage again almost immediately afterwards.”
“And you did not see Mr. George Brooklyn again?”
“No.”
“You saw no more of either Mr. Prinsep or Mr. Walter Brooklyn, I suppose?”
“Yes, as it happens, I caught sight, out of my window, of Mr. Prinsep walking in the garden behind the theatre. That must have been about a quarter past eleven.”