Page:Alice Stuyvesant - The Vanity Box.djvu/100

 He answered quite freely now, making the best of a business which he thought bad, for he would have given much to have kept Teresina Ricardo's name out of this terrible affair, and had indeed tried to do so. But seeing that, in spite of his deliberate concealment, by some means or other the coroner was already informed of Miss Ricardo's visit, Sir Ian realized that harm rather than good would be done by refusing to answer with apparent frankness. "You and Lady Hereward, then, started home in time to meet these ladies, should they call?"

"We did."

"Would it not have been quicker to go by carriage or motor along the road?"

14 Yes, but we had not ordered ours to come for us, and though Mrs. Forestier offered to send us home, so that we might stop a little longer, my wife said that she would like to walk."

"It was her express wish to walk?"

"Yes."

"What way did you take through the woods?"

"The path that leads by the stone Tower."

"Is that the shortest way?"

"No, it is a slight detour. It means going rather higher along the hill than there is a need to go."

"Why did you choose to make that detour, if you were in a hurry?"