That evening after dinner, Miss Carlyle and Lord Mount Severn sat side by side on the same sofa, coffee cups in hand. Miss Carlyle turned to the earl.
“Was it a positively ascertained fact that Lady Isabel died?”
The earl stared with all his might; he thought it the strangest question that ever was asked him. “I scarcely understand you, Miss Carlyle. Died? Certainly she died.”
“When the result of the accident was communicated to you, you made inquiry yourself into its truth, its details, I believe?”
“It was my duty to do so. There was no one else to undertake it.”
“Did you ascertain positively, beyond all doubt, that she did die?”
“Of a surety I did. She died in the course of the same night. Terribly injured she was.”
A pause. Miss Carlyle was ruminating. But she returned to the charge, as if difficult to be convinced.
“You deem that there could be no possibility of an error? You are sure that she is dead?”
“I am as sure that she is dead as that we are living,” decisively replied the earl: and he spoke but according to his belief. “Wherefore should you be inquiring this?”