Page:Fletcher - The Mortover Grange Affair.pdf/297

 "No—he talked a bit to Mr. Levigne when we were having tea, but only about shooting."

"What happened after that?"

"Well, after tea, Philip went off to a room where he keeps his guns, and Aunt Janet asked me to wash up the tea-things. She and Mr. Levigne began talking again. I heard him say 'You may as well make up your mind—there's nothing else for it.' I didn't hear what she said to that, but after a while she went upstairs and came down again dressed to go out. She and Mr. Levigne went out—she said to me that they'd be back at eight o'clock, and that if a cab came for him, the man was to wait."

"You don't know where they went?" asked Wedgwood.

"No—she didn't say. And I couldn't see which way they went, because it was just then that the snow-storm began to get really bad; it hadn't been anything much until then. Besides that was five o'clock, and dark."

"Where could they go?" asked Wedgwood. "There's nowhere to go to, about here, is there?"

"There are two or three houses—farmhouses—not so very far off," replied Mattie. "And there's a new house been built near the colliery, where the manager, Mr. Malcolmson,