"I had the strongest possible objection to having this unhappy occurrence made the object of official inquiry or public comment. I would not have spoken as I have since I came in here for any other consideration in the world than my inability to tell anything that is not true. "I would not swear anything that was not true to save my life; no, nor to save the life of any one living or any one who has lived. You ask me did I not perjure myself when I swore at the altar to love my late husband. I say I did not. When I took that oath I meant to keep it. I meant to try and love him with all my--I will not say heart--with all my reason, if such an expression may be allowed. I was fully honest when I took the oath. When you do all you can to carry out your promise, and yet fail in the end, there is no flaw. One cannot control the inevitable. "Now that all is known, all my recent life laid bare, who is the richer? Does any one wonder I had no liking to expose what has been told of since I came into this place? You, Mr. Edward Davenport, have, in the moment of her sorest trial, done all you could to injure the character of your brother's wife. You had not the courage to attack her openly when she was a widow, but must shamble and crouch behind a hireling advocate--a creature who would pocket as clean the gold of any one even more leprous than himself." And before the coroner could collect himself, or stay her by gesture, she had swept out of the room. From beginning to end her voice had never altered in pitch. The concluding words were spoken in the same manner as those of the opening. Hence when the import of her final words began to reach the minds of the hearers, she had finished, and was in the act of leaving the room. Her words "shamble" and "crouch" were peculiarly applicable to Edward Davenport at the time, for no sooner did she begin her reference to him than she pointed him out, and he instinctively shrank behind his solicitor, to whom he had been prompting questions most offensive. When the murmur which followed the disappearance of Mrs. Davenport had subsided, and the coroner had somewhat recovered from his astonishment, Thomas Blake stood up, stepped forward to the table, and, laying his hand on it, said: "I am the last person who saw Mr. Louis Davenport alive. I desire to be examined." CHAPTER XIII. BLAKE'S EVIDENCE. When Blake stood up and tendered his testimony, a murmur of ugly import ran through the room. In all there were not more than fifty people present, but the fifty were typical of the general public, and already feeling ran high against Blake.