sked.

"Yes," replied the lady, "he did explain why. I remember very well what
he said, because--" she stopped with a little appearance of confusion.

"Because--" the coroner insisted gently.

"Because my husband was not as a rule communicative about his business
affairs," answered the witness, raising her chin with a faint touch of
defiance. "He did not--did not think they would interest me, and as a
rule referred to them as little as possible. That is why I was rather
surprised when he told me that he had sent Mr. Marlowe to Southampton to
bring back some important information from a man who was leaving for
Paris by the next day's boat. He said that Mr. Marlowe could do it quite
easily if he had no accident. He said that he had started in the car,
and then walked back home a mile or so, and felt all the better for it."

"Did he say any more?"

"Nothing, as well as I remember," the witness said. "I was very sleepy,
and I dropped off again in a few moments. I just remember my husband
turning his light out, and that is all. I never saw him again alive."

"And you heard nothing in the night?"

"No; I never woke until my maid brought my tea in the morning at seven
o'clock. She closed the door leading to my husband's room, as she always
did, and I supposed him to be still there. He always needed a great deal
of sleep. He sometimes slept until quite late in the morning. I had
breakfast in my sitting-room. It was about ten when I heard that my
husband's body had been found." The witness dropped her head and
silently waited for her dismissal.

But it was not to be yet.

"Mrs. Manderson." The coroner's voice was sympathetic, but it had a hint
of firmness in it now. "The question I am going to put to you must, in
these sad circumstances, be a painful one; but it is my duty to ask it.
Is it the fact that your relations with your late husband had not been,
for some time past, relations of mutual affection and confidence? Is it
the fact that there was an estrangement between you?"

The lady drew herself up again and faced her questioner, the color
rising in her cheeks. "If that question is necessary," she said with
cold distinctness, "I will answer it so that there shall be no
misunderstanding. During the last few months of my husband's life his
attitude towards me had given me great anxiety and sorrow. He had
changed towards me; he had become very reserved and seemed mistrustful.
I saw much less of him than before; he s