One or two of the jury made it evident that they considered the question in bad taste, but there was a curious silence when it was seen that the witness hesitated.
“He asked me for ten pounds,” she said.
Tony gasped when this was told him, and felt his face grow a trifle warm, while a little thrill of indignation ran through him. He had been pleased to see his friend and sweetheart on good terms, but that one should borrow ten pounds from the other suggested a degree of intimacy he had not contemplated.
“Do you know why he wanted the money?” asked the coroner.
The girl looked at him steadily, and nobody saw that her hands were trembling. “No,” she said coldly. “That is, I do not know exactly. I had, however, asked him to do me a favor which might cost a little money, and surmised that he needed some. It was not quite certain that I should see him on the morrow.”
“What was the favor?”
Violet Wayne straightened herself with an almost imperceptible movement, but there was a change in her pose, and she held her shapely head higher. “It had nothing to do with anything that could concern this inquiry,” she said.
“You are on oath, Miss Wayne,” said the coroner. “Remembering that, you are willing to repeat the assurance you have just given me?”
“Yes,” said the girl, standing very still, though every nerve in her was tingling. She long remembered the strain she underwent just then, but it was not until afterwards she was sorry that she had submitted to it. She did nothing by half, and her love for Tony carried an obligation with it. There were only one or two people, and Tony was not among them, who realized all that Violet Wayne was, but they paid her a respectful homage they offered to no other woman.
The coroner had not seen her until that morning, but her bearing, and perhaps her beauty, had an effect, for he signified that he was contented, and Godfrey Palliser was called. He carried himself a trifle stiffly, and was as usual immaculate in dress while it was with a suggestion of carefully suppressed annoyance, which some of those present sympathized with, he gave his evidence.