When he got outside, he allowed himself to indulge in a moment of puzzled and half-reluctant admiration. What superb nerve! Her connection with this mysterious case was evidently a close and vital one, yet she had held herself so well in hand that it was impossible for him to say now, after this momentous interview, whether her sympathies were with Lawrence or not. She had most completely understood and heeded his injunction to keep silence, at any rate. Was the injunction needed, in the face of such self-control? What was it that lay behind that shield? Lyon felt as though his hands were being bound by invisible bands, and he had a frantic desire to break his way clear and force a way to an understanding of things. Turning a corner he came upon the old grandfather taking his leisurely constitutional in the sun, and instantly he realized that Providence had placed in his hands the means of removing some of his assorted varieties of ignorance,--if it is Providence who helps a man when he is trying to peer into his neighbor's business. There may be a difference in the point of view as to that. With a surreptitious glance at his watch, he fell into step beside Mr. Wolcott.
"Your quiet neighborhood has made itself rather notorious," he began, at a safe distance from his objective point. "I suppose you first learned of the murder through the papers this morning. Or did you hear the excitement last night?"
"I heard the grocer boy telling Eliza this morning," Mr. Wolcott answered. "I don't read the paper very much. My eyesight is all right,--my faculties are all as good as ever,--but they print the papers in such fine type nowadays, I don't care to read them."
"Well, Miss Wolcott would surely have read it and noticed about the murder."
"She wouldn't talk about it."
"Of course it is not a pleasant thing to talk about."
"That isn't all. You see, Edith was engaged to marry that Mr. Fullerton at one time."
"Really?" This was so startling a piece of information that Lyon stopped short in his surprise, trying to fit it into its place with the other things he knew or guessed. "Really!"
"Don't let on I told you," said the old gentleman, confidentially. "Edith doesn't like to have me talk about her affairs. But that's the reason she is so strange to-day. Maybe you didn't notice, but she was very quiet all day."
"Do you think that she cared for him still?" demanded Lyon.