"Thank you. Now, will you tell me this—Were you ever engaged to Mrs. Eustace before she married her present husband?"
"Yes."
"Did she break it off, or did you?"
"She—she married."
"She married Eustace, while she was practically engaged to you?"
"While she was actually engaged to me."
"Then he must have known of your existence?"
"I assume so, but—well, nothing was ever said about it between us. I will tell you exactly what happened. The letters I had written to her, the presents I had given her, and her engagement ring, were returned to me in a packet through the post with a piece of wedding-cake. Until I came here and met her, I did not know to whom she was married. Whether Eustace knew we had once been engaged I do not know. I never referred to it."
"You never knew that, in applying for an assistant, he named you personally to the general manager of the bank and gave as a reason a long-standing friendship?"
The look of astonishment which showed on Harding's face was sufficient answer.