So much for what I saw on the faces about me. What my own face revealed I can not say. I only know that I strove to preserve an impassive exterior. If I secretly held this man’s misery to be a mask hiding untold passions and the darkness of an unimaginable deed, it was not for me to disclose in this presence either my suspicions or my fears. To me, as to those about me, he apparently was a man who at some sacrifice to his pride, would, yet be able to explain whatever seemed dubious in the mysterious case in which he had become involved. His wife’s uncle, who to all appearance shared the general curiosity as to the effect which this woeful tragedy had had upon his niece’s most interested survivor, eyed with a certain cold interest, eminently in keeping with his general character, the pallid forehead, sunken eyes and nervously trembling lip of the once “handsome Jeffrey” till that gentleman, rousing from his depression, manifested a realization of what was required of him and turned with a bow toward the coroner. Miss Tuttle settled into a greater rigidity. I pass over the preliminary examination of this important witness and proceed at once to the point when the coroner, holding out the two or three lines of writing which Mr. Jeffrey had declared to have been left him by his wife, asked: “Are these words in your wife’s handwriting?” Mr. Jeffrey replied hastily, and, with just a glance at the paper offered him: “They are.” The coroner pressed the slip upon him. “Look at them carefully,” he urged. “The handwriting shows hurry and in places is scarcely legible. Are you ready to swear that these words were written by your wife and by no other?” Mr. Jeffrey, with just a slight contraction of his brow expressive of annoyance, did as he was bid. He scanned, or appeared to scan, the small scrap of paper which he now took into his own hand. “It is my wife’s writing,” he impatiently declared. “Written, as all can see, under great agitation of mind, but hers without any doubt.” “Will you read aloud these words for our benefit?” asked the coroner: It was a cruel request, causing an instinctive protest from the spectators. But no protest disturbed Coroner Z. He had his reasons, no doubt, for thus trying this witness, and when Coroner Z. had reason for anything it took more than the displeasure of the crowd to deter him. Mr. Jeffrey, who had subdued whatever indignation he may have felt at this unmistakable proof of the coroner’s intention to have his own way with him whatever the cost to his sensitiveness or pride, obeyed the latter’s command in firmer tones than I expected. The lines he was thus called upon to read may bear repetition: “I find that I do not love you as I thought. I can not live knowing this to be so. Pray God you may forgive me! VERONICA.” As the last word fell with a little tremble from Mr. Jeffrey’s lips, the coroner repeated: