Alban now knew how Emily had obtained employment as Sir Jervis’s secretary; how Mr. and Mrs. Rook had been previously known to Cecilia’s father as respectable people keeping an inn in his own neighborhood; and, finally, how they had been obliged to begin life again in domestic service, because the terrible event of a murder had given the inn a bad name, and had driven away the customers on whose encouragement their business depended.
Listening in silence, Alban remained silent when Emily’s narrative had come to an end.
“Have you nothing to say to me?” she asked.
“I am thinking over what I have just heard,” he answered.
Emily noticed a certain formality in his tone and manner, which disagreeably surprised her. He seemed to have made his reply as a mere concession to politeness, while he was thinking of something else which really interested him.
“Have I disappointed you in any way?” she asked.
“On the contrary, you have interested me. I want to be quite sure that I remember exactly what you have said. You mentioned, I think, that your friendship with Miss Cecilia Wyvil began here, at the school?”
“Yes.”
“And in speaking of the murder at the village inn, you told me that the crime was committed—I have forgotten how long ago?”
His manner still suggested that he was idly talking about what she had told him, while some more important subject for reflection was in possession of his mind.