His tone, which had been shrill and high, dropped at the final sentence, and by the nervous workings of his lips, Mr. Byrd perceived that he dreaded the next question. The persons grouped around him evidently dreaded it too. But it was less searching than they expected, and proved that the coroner preferred to approach his point by circuitous rather than direct means. "In what room was the conversation held, and by what door did you come in and go out?" "I came in by the front door, and we stood in that room"--pointing to the sitting-room from which he had just issued. "Stood! Did you not sit down?" "No." "Stood all the time, and in that room to which you have just pointed?" "Yes." The coroner drew a deep breath, and looked at the witness long and searchingly. Mr. Hildreth's way of uttering this word had been any thing but pleasant, and consequently any thing but satisfactory. A low murmur began to eddy through the rooms. "Gentlemen, silence!" commanded the coroner, venting in this injunction some of the uncomfortable emotion with which he was evidently surcharged; for his next words were spoken in a comparatively quiet voice, though the fixed severity of his eye could have given the witness but little encouragement. "You say," he declared, "that in coming through the lane you encountered no one. Was this equally true of your return?" "Yes, sir; I believe so. I don't remember. I was not looking up," was the slightly confused reply. "You passed, however, through the lane, and entered the main street by the usual path?" "Yes." "And where did you go then?" "To the depot." "Ah!" "I wished to leave the town. I had done with it." "And did you do so, Mr. Hildreth?" "I did." "Where did you go?" "To Albany, where I had left my traps." "You took the noon train, then?" "Yes, sir." "Which leaves precisely five minutes after twelve?" "I suppose so." "Took it without stopping anywhere on the way?" "Yes, sir." "Did you buy a ticket at the office?" "No, sir." "Why?" "I did not have time." "Ah, the train was at the station, then?" Mr. Hildreth did not reply; he had evidently been driven almost to the end of his patience, or possibly of his courage, by this quick fire of small questions. The coroner saw this and pressed his advantage. "Was the train at the station or not when you arrived there, Mr. Hildreth?" "I do not see why it can interest you to know," the witness retorted, with a flash of somewhat natural anger; "but since you insist, I will tell you that it was just going out, and that I had to run to reach it, and only got a foothold upon the platform of the rear car at the risk of my life." He looked as if he wished it had been at the cost of his life, and compressed his lips and moved restlessly from side to side as if the battery of eyes levelled upon his face were so many points of red-hot steel burning into his brain.