“Last night.”
“Why did you not let your friends know of your return? All day, in fact for several days, they have been sending telegrams to every place where they could conceive your being.”
He did not answer.
“It looks very much as if you were trying to hide.”
Again he did not reply.
“It looks very much,” she steadily pursued, “as if your sister discharged the nurse and the servant in order that you might hide here in your own home without risk of discovery.”
Still he did not answer.
“You need not reply to that question, for the reply is obvious. I guessed the meaning of the nurse’s discharge as soon as I heard of it. I guessed that you were secretly hovering over Elsie, while all Westville thought you were hundreds of miles away. But tell me, how did you learn that Elsie was sick?”
He hesitated, then swallowed.
“I saw a notice of it in a little country paper.”