"Because--if you will know it--he loved her more than was natural--he loved her more than his God; and the Lord God is a jealous God." "And this is really your only reason for your extraordinary supposition?" "For me it is enough," she replied. "Well, well--very curious indeed!" said the coroner, regarding the woman intently. He paused for a moment. "How did you pass the evening of the murder?" he asked. "In my room. I had a headache and went early to bed." "I suppose somebody saw you after you left Lady Wilmersley's room who can support your statement?" "I do not know. I do not remember seeing any one," answered Valdriguez, throwing her head back and looking a little defiantly at Mr. Tinker. "Ah, really? That is a pity," said the coroner. "However, there is no reason to doubt your word--as yet," he added. Mrs. Eversley was next called. The coroner questioned her exhaustively as to the missing Priscilla Prentice. He seemed especially anxious to know whether the girl had owned a bicycle. She had not.--Did she know how to ride one? Yes, Mrs. Eversley had seen her try one belonging to the under-housemaid.--Did many of the servants own bicycles? Yes.--Had one of them been taken? She did not know. On further inquiry, however, it was found that all the machines were accounted for. It had not occurred to Cyril to speculate as to how, if Prentice had really aided her mistress to escape, she had been able to cover the nine miles which separated the castle from Newhaven. Eighteen miles in one evening on foot! Not perhaps an impossible feat, but very nearly so, especially as on her way back she would have been handicapped by Lady Wilmersley, a delicate woman, quite unaccustomed--at all events during the last three years--to any form of exercise. It was evident, however, that this difficulty had not escaped the coroner, for all the servants and more especially the gardeners and under-gardeners were asked if they had seen in any of the less-frequented paths traces of a carriage or bicycle. But no one had seen or heard anything suspicious. The head gardener and his wife, who lived at the Lodge, swore that the tall, iron gates had been locked at half-past nine, and that they had heard no vehicle pass on the highroad during the night. At this point in the proceedings whispering was audible in the back of the hall. The coroner paused to see what was the matter. A moment later Douglas stepped up to him and said something in a low voice. The coroner nodded. "Mrs. Willis," he called. A middle-aged woman, very red in the face, came reluctantly forward. "Well, Mrs. Willis, I hear you have something to tell me?" "Indeed no, sir," exclaimed the woman, picking nervously at her gloves. "It is nothing at all. Only when I 'eard you asking about carriages in the night, I says to Mrs. Jones--well, one passed, I know that. Leastways, it didn't exactly pass; it stayed." "The carriage stayed; where?" "It wasn't a carriage."