“Was no one else ever suspected?”
“There might be some who had suspicions, but they kept their suspicions to themselves.”
“Did you yourself have suspicions?”
“It’s a long time ago, sir. The Squire and me are the only two people that remember the thing. What’s the use, after all these years, of having suspicions? I don’t say I have, and I don’t say I haven’t. If I have, they will be buried with me in my grave.”
Leonard returned to London. He now understood exactly the condition of the ground, and he had examined the old man whose evidence was so important. Nothing additional was to be got out of him; but the verbal statement of a contemporary after seventy years concerning the event in which Leonard was so much interested was remarkable.
He returned to his own rooms. Hither presently came Constance.
“My friend and cousin,” she said, in her frank manner, as if there had never been any disturbing question between them, “you are looking worried. What is the matter?”
“Am I looking worried?”
“The more important point is—are you feeling worried? Leonard, it has nothing to do with that little conversation we had the other day?”
“No,” he replied. “Nothing.” It was not a complimentary reply, but, then, Constance was not a girl to expect or to care for compliments.