He rose, trembling visibly, and looked round with a vacant eye till he caught sight of Wanless, who had fallen back, and was standing near the door. Then his look changed, and, with something like energy, he exclaimed--"I wish to ask you, gentlemen, not to believe what that man says. He has a spite against my family, and against the family at----" Here he stopped suddenly, afraid to mention the name of his child's destroyer, and the solemn voice of the peasant was heard saying--"God forgive you, Josiah Codling," softly, as if to himself. But the Vicar heard, and his trembling increased so much that when a blunt juryman interposed with--"How do you account for your daughter's suicide then?" he could only stammer a feeble--"I'm sure I cannot say." "But surely you knew her whereabouts--what she was doing?" "N-n-no, I cannot say I did quite. My wife--that is her mother--told me that she was visiting an aunt in Kent, and I believed it was so." "But were there no letters, then? Didn't your daughter write to you at times?" persisted the juryman, though the coroner began to fidget and look black. "Letters!" repeated the Vicar, as if struck with a new idea; "no, I believe not. Yes, I think she did write to her mother--to my wife that is to say. At least I saw the envelope of one letter. I picked it out of the coal scuttle in the breakfast room, but Adelaide--that is my daughter--did not write to me--not that I recollect." "Humph! I see, 'grey mare the better horse,'" muttered the juryman--a bluff, not unkindly-looking man, and then there fell a moment of deep silence on the Court. The Vicar stood, bearing himself up with his hands on the table before him, and seemed to have more to say. But when after a brief pause, the impatient Coroner ejaculated--"Well, sir! have you done?" the Vicar answered--"Y-yes, I think so. I only wished you not to judge my child hastily," and sat down.