On the other hand, the theory of accidental poisoning was supported, negatively, by the lack of apparent cause for self-destruction; and positively, by the fact that on the dead man's table, side by side with the potent narcotic before mentioned, stood a phial of exactly the same size, and with equally colorless contents. Of this Arling had been accustomed to take two or three spoonfuls, mixed with a few drops of a third preparation of exceeding bitter flavor. A careless hand might have mistaken the one phial for the other. The taste of the morphine, so swallowed, would be much disguised; while the dose was sufficient, under the circumstances, to produce death. It will be seen, therefore, that the verdict rendered was the only one upon which a coroner's jury could well have been expected to agree. The body was next solemnly laid in a vault, to await the disposal of the parents, who lived in a western state; and the widening circles of excitement, horror, curiosity, and regret, of which it had been the unconscious centre, rapidly subsided, or were effaced by the growing interests of the now imminent closing examination. Even Trubie, though he flatly refused to acquiesce in the coroner's verdict, was forced tacitly to accept its results. He took refuge in a complete personal proscription of Roath; he neither spoke to him nor looked at him; he treated him precisely as if he did not exist. To a person of Roath's cold, hard, steely temper, and obtuse sensibilities, this demeanor was, perhaps, the most tolerable of which the circumstances admitted. It spared him the necessity of being either conciliatory or resentful; he was well content to ignore Trubie as completely as Trubie ignored him. He soon found, however, that he had greatly underestimated the moral force of an abhorrence deeply rooted in immitigable distrust. Though largely given to psychological studies, and profoundly learned, for his years, in the intricacies and tendencies of the human mind, he was astonished to find how soon the atmosphere grew heavy around him, how quickly Trubie's dogged dislike communicated itself, more or less strongly, to others; while the increased cordiality of a few, though kindly intended to offset it, only served to point him out more clearly as one set apart, for the time, from life's ordinary course and level, by the force of an unenviable, if undeserved, notoriety. Not that he ever appeared to be conscious of either of these manifestations, or of their ultimate effect. Nature had given him a moral and intellectual fibre so tough, and he had trained himself to a control so perfect, that the keenest observer could not detect the least variation from his usual composed, concentrated, somewhat moody demeanor. Whatever of suffering, or of sin, lay at the bottom of his heart, not a shadow thereof was seen in his face.