It was the car, he said, of the man who'd asked for me earlier.

The question he had asked earlier, the one she kept failing to answer.

He'd asked the question earlier and received no concrete answer.

He decided to answer a question Eden had asked earlier.

Then I would like to answer a question that you asked earlier.

He could not help adding, "I would have been in a very difficult position had you asked for my promise earlier."

Which brings us back to the question I asked earlier: is it safe to buy stocks again?

Just as if she had not been asking for intercession a moment earlier.

I returned then to the question I had asked earlier.

An apt question, and one the reader has likely asked about 60 pages earlier.