"The fact was—I didn't want to marry anybody—just then anyway," she answered. "They—both asked me—several times. I—if you please, will you not ask me any more about my private affairs?—they've nothing to do with this! It wasn't my fault that those two were jealous of each other, and——"
"She's let the cat out of the bag now!" whispered Tansley to Brent. "Gad! I see how this thing's going to develop! Whew! Well, there she goes!"
For the Coroner had politely motioned Mrs. Saumarez away from the box, and the next instant the official voice rapped out another name:
"Dr. Rutherford Carstairs!"
CHAPTER XI
THE NINETEEN MINUTES' INTERVAL
C arstairs, a red-haired, blue-eyed, stolid-faced young Scotsman, stepped into the witness-box with the air of a man who is being forced against his will to the performance of some distasteful obligation. Everybody looked wonderingly at him; he was a comparative stranger in the town, and the unimaginative folk amongst the spectators were already cudgelling their brains for an explanation of his presence. But Brent, after a glance at Carstairs, transferred his attention to Carstairs's principal, at whom he had already looked once or twice during Mrs. Saumarez's brief occupancy of the witness-box. Wellesley, sitting in a corner seat a little to the rear of the solicitor's table, had manifested some signs of surprise and annoyance while Mrs. Saumarez was being questioned; now he showed blank wonder at hearing his assistant called. He looked from Carstairs to the Coroner, and from the Coroner to Hawthwaite, and suddenly, while Carstairs was taking the oath, he slipped from his seat, approached Cotman, a local solicitor, who sat listening, close by Tansley, and began to talk to him in hurried undertones. Tansley nudged Brent's elbow.