“Oh, yes. That’s why I was annoyed. We’d had it out so often that I was tired of the subject.”
“So that, when Mr. Leslie wished to break off the engagement, you refused and held him to it?”
The colour flooded Cynthia’s cheeks, but she was too wise to take offense at the suggestion. She looked at the Coroner with disarming frankness.
“He didn’t wish to break off the engagement. That was why the whole argument was so silly. He went on suggesting it simply from a sense of duty. I shouldn’t have held him to his word if I’d thought he wanted to go.”
“Was he more insistent than usual on this occasion?”
“No. He didn’t have time. I lost my temper almost at once.”
“Are you sure that the presence of Mrs. Draycott in the neighbourhood was not one of the causes of this quarrel?”
“Perfectly certain. I had never heard of Mrs. Draycott. Miss Allen told me her sister was coming and asked me to meet her at dinner that night, but I didn’t know then that that was her name.”
“Had you never heard her name coupled with that of Mr. Leslie?”
“Never.”