“Did I say unhappily?” he inquired. “Well, I repeat it; Miss Tuttle would never have given me any cause for jealousy.” The coroner bowed and for the present dropped her name out of the conversation. “You speak again of the jealousy aroused in you by your wife’s impetuosities. Was this increased or diminished by the tone of the few lines she left behind her?” The response was long in coming. It was hard for this man to lie. The struggle he made at it was pitiful. As I noted what it cost him, I began to have new and curious thoughts concerning him and the whole matter under discussion. “I shall never overcome the remorse roused in me by those few lines,” he finally rejoined. “She showed a consideration for me—” “What!” The coroner’s exclamation showed all the surprise he felt. Mr. Jeffrey tottered under it, then grew slowly pale as if only through our amazed looks he had come to realize the charge of inconsistency to which he had laid himself open. “I mean—” he endeavored to explain, “that Mrs. Jeffrey showed an unexpected tenderness toward me by taking all the blame of our misunderstanding upon herself. It was generous of her and will do much toward making my memory of her a gentle one.” He was forgetting himself again. Indeed, his manner and attempted explanations were full of contradictions. To emphasize this fact Coroner Z. exclaimed, “I should think so! She paid a heavy penalty for her professed lack of love. You believe that her mind was unseated?” “Does not her action show it?” “Unseated by the mishap occurring at her marriage?” “Yes.” “You really think that?” “Yes.” “By anything that passed between you?” “Yes.” “May I ask you to tell us what passed between you on this point?” “Yes.” He had uttered the monosyllable so often it seemed to come unconsciously from his lips. But he recognized almost as soon as we did that it was not a natural reply to the last question, and, making a gesture of apology, he added, with the same monotony of tone which had characterized these replies: “She spoke of her strange guest’s unaccountable death more than once, and whenever she did so, it was with an unnatural excitement and in an unbalanced way. This was so noticeable to us all that the subject presently was tabooed amongst us; but though she henceforth spared us all allusion to it, she continued to talk about the house itself and of the previous deaths which had occurred there till we were forced to forbid that topic also. She was never really herself after crossing the threshold of this desolate house to be married. The shadow which lurks within its walls fell at that instant upon her life. May God have mercy—” The prayer remained unfinished. His head which had fallen on his breast sank lower. He presented the aspect of one who is quite done with life, even its sorrows.