"Was that before you left the Grange or after?"
"After—a long while after—at Clavering Close; in fact, while we were taking off our wraps preparatory to going down to the drawing-room."
"Hum-m-m!" said Cleek, puckering up his lips and looking grave. "You are establishing a very unpleasant fact by that statement. It proves that, in spite of your belief to the contrary, Lady Katharine revisited Gleer Cottage last night, and that, too, after the affair at Clavering Close."
"How perfectly absurd! Why, she wasn't out of my sight for a single instant."
"Nevertheless, she certainly visited Gleer Cottage last night," repeated Cleek with calm persistence. "I know that beyond all possible doubt, Miss Lorne; for I myself found the capsule of that bracelet there, crushed and broken, but still showing that the St. Ulmer arms and the name 'Katharine' had been engraved upon it. Don't look at me like that, please, or you will make me hate myself for having to tell you this."
"But I tell you it is impossible," she still protested. "I tell you she was never out of my sight for one instant from the time we left this house to the time we returned. No, not for one, Mr. Cleek, up to the very moment she left me to go to bed."
"Just so. But after that?"
"After that? After——" she began; and then stopped, and grew very pale and very, very still, for there had come to her a recollection of that moment when, as she had said, she fancied she heard Lady Katharine's door open and shut in the night when all the house was still.
"And after that?" repeated Cleek, driving the question home.
"How should I know?" she gave back, in something akin to panic. "How could I? We do not sleep together. But"—with sudden brightening—"this I do know, however: the bracelet was still on her wrist and the scent globe still attached to it, even then. I saw it with my own eyes."