I have often had occasion to notice how, where a direct question would fail to elicit a response, a false assumption brings instant information in the form of a contradiction.

It had come about ex­act­ly in the way things hap­pened in books.

Heather Badcock meant no harm. She never did mean harm, but there is no doubt that people like Heather Badcock (and like my old friend Alison Wilde), are capable of doing a lot of harm because they lack - not kindness, they have kindness - but any real consideration for the way their actions may affect other people. She though always of what an action meant to her, never sparing a thought to what it might mean to somebody else.

a great man always knows better than to explain unless an explanation is demanded. To rush into explanations and excuses is always a sign of weakness.

Very unfortunately, she had no husband. She had never had a husband, and therefore did not kill a husband.

Sitting here with one's knitting, one just sees the facts. -"The Blood-Stained Pavement

The out-of-date returns in due course as the picturesque.