— 42 —When Mr. Atherton received that letter he summoned Mrs. Sacret to London, and in his stately offices at Lincoln’s Inn rather sternly stated that he addressed himself to her as “the more intelligent of the two ladies. Mrs. Rue is as simple as a schoolgirl, for all her two marriages. At least so I suppose.”
Mrs. Sacret agreed and listened quietly as this sedate, keen-faced man continued, in tones that were not without a note of warning, to impress on her the need of Susan and herself “telling the same tale. Obviously you will both be telling the exact truth. But it is easy even for two veracious accounts to jar on one another, even to confuse or contradict one another.”
“Yes,” agreed Mrs. Sacret, who had already decided to concert her evidence with Susan’s—“but she is weak and obstin
