"The sixth day! Good heavens! Six days! Then the inquest is over?" "Yes. You must not talk much or excite yourself at all. You may, however, talk a little more than yesterday, for you are getting on famously." "For goodness' sake, tell me about the inquest, and don't talk of me and my health. No, I won't taste breakfast until you tell me. What was the verdict?" "Dr. Santley said you might be answered questions to-day if you promised not to excite yourself. Do you promise to keep calm, Alfred?" "Oh, yes. Go on." "The verdict was that he committed suicide while of unsound mind." "Suicide while of unsound mind! Are you sure?" "Oh, perfectly." "Does Santley know the verdict?" "Of course." "And what does he say?" "That it is the most extraordinary case he ever read or heard of." CHAPTER XVII. JERRY O'BRIEN'S PROPHECY. When Dr. Santley called that day, he found his patient in a state of agitation. Madge Paulton had given her brother an outline of the proceedings at the second sitting of the inquest; but she could not tell him all, and she considered it would be injudicious, to say the least of it, to read a report of the trial aloud to him until she got permission from the doctor. Besides, the report was gruesome and full of technicalities. No sooner had Dr. Santley entered the sick room than Alfred began a string of impatient and somewhat incoherent questions; so Santley thought it better to allay the excitement at the expense of a little fatigue to his patient, still he absolutely forbade the long report to be read to him. "But," said the doctor, "there is a leading article in the paper, and the middle paragraph of that gives briefly an account of the case from the point at which the enthralling interest begins. You may read that aloud to your brother, Miss Paulton, and then I insist upon his remaining almost silent for the remainder of the day." When Santley was gone, Madge fetched the newspaper, and read aloud: "We now reach the most extraordinary point in this extraordinary case. The evidence here is sufficient to convince the most incredulous. Beyond all doubt, when Mr. Blake left the house there was nothing unusual the matter with the deceased unfortunate gentleman. After that it would seem that he must have had an attack of the old mania respecting which Mr. Blake gave evidence. While under this morbid influence he must have conceived the idea of committing suicide, for he wrote on one leaf of his pocket-book these words: "'_I will not endure this any longer. They have conspired to rob and murder me. But I will evade them for good. In ten seconds more I shall empty the chloroform on my beard. In twenty minutes I shall be dead_.---Louis Davenport.'