"I should think, sir," replied the coroner, "that no one would object to your stating the conversation you held with them, considering the circumstances in which you are placed, and I am very desirous, indeed, Sir Charles Tyrrell, that you should be explicit; for the jury are anxious to arrive at a calm and just conclusion, and I fear, under present circumstances, that our decision must be a very painful one." "Whatever is your decision, sir," replied Charles Tyrrell, "it cannot induce me to violate confidence reposed in me, or to repeat conversation, which might produce injury to others." "Had that conversation anything to do with the present case?" demanded the coroner. Charles Tyrrell replied in the negative, and the coroner went on in the same kindly tone which he had used throughout. "There are several things to be explained, sir," he said, "which must be left for you to do, or not, as you think fit, but only let me point them out to you, and observe that if you will satisfactorily account for them, it may spare a great deal of pain to all parties. There can be no doubt that the unfortunate gentleman, the causes of whose death we are about to investigate, was killed by the gun, which you carried out in the morning, that he went out to seek you, and that the feelings of both were highly irritated at the time. You say that you never saw him after leaving the house, that you laid down your gun against the wall of the garden, and entering the garden itself, proceeded in a direction leading away from the spot where the murder was committed; so far you are borne out by the testimony of the gardener, and if you can account for the time which afterward elapsed, showing any of the persons that you spoke with, or who can prove that they saw you under such circumstances, as to establish that you could not have been on the spot at the time Sir Francis Tyrrell was killed--even if you give us strong probabilities to suppose that such was the case, we are very willing to take your previous high character, and the natural affections of human nature into consideration, and give you every benefit of doubt. It may be also necessary for you to account satisfactorily for the blood which appeared on your shooting jacket and on your hands, as you say that you laid down your gun, without having discharged it at any of the ordinary objects of field sport. Let me beg you to consider the matter well, and make such a reply as will save unpleasant results."