Page:Jepson--The Loudwater mystery.djvu/106

100 made a shot, and said: "I see. He wanted you to become engaged to him again, and you wouldn't."

Elizabeth looked at him with an air of surprise and respect, and said: "It wasn't quite like that, sir. I didn't say as I wouldn't be his fioncy again. I said I'd see how he behaved himself."

"Then he wasn't in a good temper," said Mr. Flexen.

"He was in a better temper than he'd any right to expect to be," said Elizabeth with some heat.

"That's true," said Mr. Flexen, smiling at her. "But after the trouble he had had with Lord Loudwater he couldn't be in a very good temper."

"He was too used to his lordship's tantrums to take much notice of them. He was too much that way himself," said Elizabeth quickly.

"I see," said Mr. Flexen. "What time was it when he left you?"

"I can't rightly say. But it wasn't half-past eleven," she said.

He perceived that that was true. At the moment there was no more to be learned from her. If she could throw any more light on the doings of James Hutchings, she was on her guard and would not. But he had learned that James Hutchings had not entered the Castle by the side door. Had he entered it and left it by the library window?

He asked Elizabeth a few more unimportant questions and dismissed her.