It sounded banal, even ridiculous, but I hardly knew what to say. I was startled. The tolling of the bell, too, was getting on my nerves.
“One doesn’t write such things,” he said. “You’ve been abroad for years.”
“It’s all right now?”
He nodded.
“I suppose so. Vere has never had the least suspicion.”
He drew his chair closer to mine, and was about to go on speaking when the servants came in with the coffee.
“Who’s the bell tolling for, Hurst?” he said to the butler.
“I couldn’t say, my lord.”
When the servants had gone Inley continued, at first in a calmer voice:
“Miss Bassett lived in the red cottage just beyond the gate of the South Lodge from time immemorial. You generally came to us in Scotland, I know, but I should think you must have seen her.”