Page:Lady Molly of Scotland Yard.pdf/318

LADY MOLLY OF SCOTLAND YARD parried every question by refusing to swear positively either for or against the identity of Miss Löwenthal.

"There's something that's different about her somehow," one of the waitresses asserted positively.

"What is it that’s different?" asked the solicitor for the accused, pressing his point.

"I can't say," was the perpetual, maddening reply.

Of course the poor young widow had to be dragged into the case, and here, I think, opinions and even expressions of sympathy were quite unanimous.

The whole tragedy had been inexpressibly painful to her, of course, and now it must have seemed doubly so. The scandal which had accumulated round her late husband's name must have added the poignancy of shame to that of grief. Mark Culledon had behaved as callously to the girl whom clearly he had married from interested, family motives, as he had to the one whom he had heartlessly cast aside.

Lady Irene, however, was most moderate in her statements. There was no doubt that she had known of her husband’s previous entanglement with Miss Löwenthal, but apparently had not thought fit to make him accountable for the past. She did not know that Miss Löwenthal had threatened a breach of promise action against her husband.

Throughout her evidence she spoke with absolute 280