CHAPTER XII. ANOTHER WITNESS. There was a slight commotion in the dingy-room when this woman with the lovely figure and beautiful head and face entered. The coroner straightened himself and looked at her under his spectacles. The jury leaned forward and stared, and the few members of the general public who had succeeded in gaining admission to the room strained their necks and shuffled their feet. She advanced quietly to the table at which the coroner sat, with the jury on his right, and having thrown back her thick widow's veil and ungloved her right hand, took the Book and kissed it when the proper moment for doing so arrived. The coroner pointed to a chair, and told her she might be seated. She simply bowed and remained standing. She was pale, rigid, collected. The coroner busied himself with the pens, ink, and paper before him for a little while, and then asked her to tell them all she knew of the night and event under consideration. When she spoke her voice was clear and firm--as free from emotion as though she was repeating an old task by rote. The earlier portions of what she said may be partly omitted, for they have been already related to Alfred Paulton and Richard Pringle. For the sake of conciseness, the remainder of the evidence taken that day will, in the case of each witness, follow the order of events in narrative form, and not the order of events as given by the witnesses. "She and her husband arrived at Crescent House the night he died. He was not so well as usual, but she had known the asthma more troublesome. They had supper together. He ate more sparingly than usual. They were alone in the house. He decided upon resting on the couch all night. No room but her sleeping room was in anything like order. She was tired after the journey. They had come from Chester that day. Her husband suggested she should go to bed. At about ten o'clock she went to her room, but resolved not to lie down yet, as she was anxious about her husband, and resolved to see him once more, and put more coal on the fire before retiring finally. She sat down in a chair, and, being overcome with fatigue and drowsiness, fell asleep. She had no means of telling exactly when she fell asleep, but she thought she must have been about twenty minutes in her room before she grew unconscious. "Close to midnight she awoke with a start. It must have been the opening of the dining-room door that aroused her. She had left her bed-room door ajar, and the carpets not being down, sounds were exaggerated and travelled far.