"I am afraid I do not understand."
Mrs. Tennant smiled--very faintly, and not with joy.
"It is immaterial. The point is, I did not discharge the girl. She left me of her own accord. I should have been glad to have kept her. She is sober, clean, honest, and industrious. As good a servant as I should wish to have."
I pretended to look at a little memorandum book which I took from my purse.
"Your name is Tennant--Mrs. Tennant?"
She nodded her head, still faintly smiling.
"My name is Tennant."
"I perceive that the names are similar; but I take it that, in spite of the similarity, you are in no way connected with the Three Bridges murderer?"
The shot sped straight home. She went red all over, then white as a sheet. Her lips trembled. I thought for a moment that she was going to cry. But she didn't.
"I don't know what it matters to you or how it concerns a servant's character; but I am the wife of the Mr. Thomas Tennant who is being wrongfully accused of murder, but who is wholly innocent of any crime." Then, with what was very like a hysterical outburst, she added, "He is the dearest and the best husband in the world."