'Well, so you have had your interview with Salome. She has been hanging about the hall all the morning for the purpose of catching you.'
Philip made no reply. Her light tone jarred on his feelings, coming as he did from the presence of a girl full of sadness.
'Has she gained you over to her side?'
'Upon my word, I do not know what to think.'
'Fiddlesticks!' said Mrs. Sidebottom; 'she has made eyes at you. Girls with good eyes know how to use them; they are better advocates than their tongues.'
'The difficulty to identification seems to me insuperable.'
'Pshaw! I have no doubt at all. He had been to bed; he went out without his coat and waistcoat. He was last seen on the canal bank, not so very far from the place where the corpse was found. The body is discovered wearing the great-coat. I have told you how I explain that. I suppose Salome has made a point to you that the nightshirt was not that of Uncle Jeremiah? Her mother looked after his linen.'
'No; she said nothing of that.'
'But I identify the shirt.'
'You, aunt?'