"She is a beautiful woman," Lyon conceded, somewhat coldly. Secretly he thought Kittie might have been as well off without that intimacy. But before he left the subject there was one point on which he wanted to get light, if possible, without betraying the point of his interest,--Mrs. Broughton's possible acquaintance with the loose panel in the protecting wall of the school yard.
"Do you know if Mrs. Broughton has been here before?" he asked.
"Oh, yes. She always stops here when she comes to Waynscott. She was one of Miss Elliott's first pupils."
"Then she knows the house and yard, pretty well?"
"Oh, of course."
"By the way, I notice that your back yard is fenced in. There is no way of getting in except by the front door, of course."
Kittie looked at him with surprise.
"When you say 'of course' in that careless way, it makes me think you mean just the opposite," she said, suspiciously.
He had to laugh at her penetration. "Then is there any other way in?" he asked.
She hesitated, and then said with an exaggerated imitation of his own "careless" manner,