Could witness give any explanation of this? "No; I can give no explanation of that writing. It is perfectly untrue. When I left the presence of the man now dead he seemed to be in as good health as his asthma would allow. My only way of accounting for what followed is that, after my leaving, he administered some chloroform to himself. This disturbed his reason, and he suffered from a return of the old delusion he had suffered in Florence----" "And of which you are the only living person who knows, or ever did know, anything?" "Yes." "And further?" "And further, that while suffering under this delusion, and being greatly excited and rendered tremulous by it, he accidentally spilled the remainder of the chloroform over himself." "He did not show any suicidal tendency, or say anything of suicide while you were present?" "No; on the contrary, he seemed in very good spirits, and spoke quite cheerfully of the future. By-the-way, I forgot to mention one saying of his. When asking me to come and see Mrs. Davenport and himself on the 19th, he said, 'You know I am not afraid of a rival now. We are none of us as young as we were ten years ago, and if you have kept single with the notion of marrying a rich widow--she will be rich, Blake--you will have a weary time to wait; for asthma gives a long lease to life." Here the inquiry was adjourned for four days in order to give time for the _post-mortem_ examination. As the people began to leave their places, Richard Pringle whispered to Jerry O'Brien: "That man Blake has put his head into the halter and kicked away the barrel from under his feet." When Pringle and O'Brien got out of that room in the "Wolfdog," they looked everywhere for Alfred Paulton. He was not to be found. He had disappeared, leaving no word or trace behind him. As Blake left the inn, two men, dressed like stable-helpers, came up to him and said they arrested him on suspicion of being concerned in the murder of the late Mr. Louis Davenport. The rain was now falling in torrents. CHAPTER XIV. ALFRED PAULTON'S WALK. It was now pitch dark. The rain rushed downward through the still air in overwhelming sheets. Through the leafless trees it fell with a shrill, constant hiss. On the open road it beat with a loud dull rolling sound, sometimes like the dull murmur of distant traffic, sometimes like, the distant roar of a mighty concourse of people.