“Were you asked anything about Jean?” asked his wife in a low voice.
“Of course I was! And of course I had to admit that she’d been at the factory fully five weeks before Emily Garlett’s death. Also that they’d corresponded while he was away.”
“Jock! You never said that? Why, it was only the most formal business correspondence,” exclaimed Mrs. Maclean dismayed.
“They particularly questioned me about it, and though I tried to make the truth as clear as I could, I don’t think they believed me. Then I had to admit that the moment he came back he and she were always together. Garlett’s head foreman was called. I felt sorry for the poor chap—he is obviously attached to Jean, but he had to confess that the factory was humming with talk about them long before they became engaged. That stupid, daft old Sir William Harding asked: ‘You mean before Mrs. Garlett’s death?’ and the foreman was so bewildered that he actually answered: ‘I don’t seem to remember exactly when the talk about them did begin.’”
“And will it all be put in the papers?”
“Of course it will.”
CHAPTER XVII
Jean walked on, Harry Garlett’s letter, still unopened, in her hand, till she came to a little wood which she knew would be almost certainly deserted.
Once in the now leafless wilderness, she began walking slowly, her feet sinking into the sodden, fallen leaves, longing and yet dreading to know what Harry had written to her.
At last she slowly opened the square, official-looking envelope. Written across the top were the words: “Read and passed by J.C. Brackbury, Governor of H.M. Prison, Grendon.”