act, rather than asking a question.

"He did not," returned Miss Lloyd, and her color rose as she observed
the intense interest manifest among her hearers.

"And the subject was discussed at the dinner table?"

"It was."

"What was the tenor of the conversation?"

"To the effect that I must break the engagement."

"Which you refused to do?"

"I did."

Her cheeks were scarlet now, but a determined note had crept into
her voice, and she looked at her betrothed husband with an air of
affectionate pride that, it seemed to me, ought to lift any man into the
seventh heaven. But I noted Mr. Hall's expression with surprise. Instead
of gazing adoringly at this girl who was thus publicly proving her
devotion to him, he sat with eyes cast down, and frowning--positively
frowning--while his fingers played nervously with his watch-chain.

Surely this case required my closest attention, for I place far more
confidence in deductions from facial expression and tones of the voice,
than from the discovery of small, inanimate objects.

And if I chose to deduce from facial expressions I had ample scope in
the countenances of these two people.

I was particularly anxious not to jump at an unwarrantable conclusion,
but the conviction was forced upon me then and there that these two
people knew more about the crime than they expected to tell. I certainly
did not suspect either of them to be touched with guilt, but I was
equally sure that they were not ingenuous in their testimony.

While I knew that they were engaged, having heard it from both of them,
I could not think that the course of their love affair was running
smoothly. I found myself drifting into idle speculation as to whether
this engagement was more desired by one than the other, and if so, by
which.

But though I could not quite understand these two, it gave me no trouble
to know which I admired more. At the moment, Miss Lloyd seemed to me to
represent all that was beautiful, noble and charming in womanhood,
while Gregory Hall gave me the impression of a man crafty, selfish and
undependable. However, I fully realized that I was theorizing without
sufficient data, and determinedly I brought my attention back to the
coroner's catalogue of questions.

"Who else heard this conversation, besides yourself, Miss Lloyd?"

"Mrs. Pierce was at the table with us, and the butler was in the room
much of the time."

The purport of the coroner's question was obvious. Plainly