d hat. We will let the subject of apparel
drop, and come to a topic on which you may be better qualified to speak.
Mr. Cumberland, you have told us that you didn't know at the time, and
can't remember now, where you spent that night and most of the next
morning. All you can remember is that it was in some place where they let
you drink all you wished and leave when the fancy took you, and not
before. It was none of your usual haunts. This seemed strange to your
friends, at the time; but it is easier for us to understand, now that you
have told us what had occurred at your home-table. You dreaded to have
your sister know how soon you could escape the influence of that moment.
You wished to drink your fill and leave your family none the wiser. Am I
not right?"

"Yes; it's plain enough, isn't it? Why harp on that string? Don't you see
that it maddens me? Do you want to drive me to drink again?"

The coroner interposed. He had been very willing to leave the burden of
this painful inquiry to the man who had no personal feelings to contend
with; but at this indignant cry he started forward, and, with an air of
fatherly persuasion, remarked kindly:

"You mustn't mind the official tone, or the official persistence. There
is reason for all that Mr. Fox says. Answer him frankly, and this
inquiry will terminate speedily. We have no wish to harry you--only to
get at the truth."

"The truth? I thought you had that pat enough. The truth? The truth about
what? Ranelagh or me? I should think it was about me, from the kind of
questions you ask."

"It is, just now," resumed the district attorney, as his colleague drew
back out of sight once more. "You cannot remember the saloon in which you
drank. That's possible enough; but perhaps you can remember what they
gave you. Was it whiskey, rum, absinthe, or what?"

The question took his irritable listener by surprise. Arthur gasped, and
tried to steal some comfort from Coroner Perry's eye. But that old
friend's face was too much in shadow, and the young man was forced to
meet the district attorney's eye, instead, and answer the district
attorney's question.

"I drank--absinthe," he cried, at last.

"From this bottle?" queried the other, motioning again to Sweetwater, who
now brought forward the bottle he had picked up in Cuthbert Road.

Arthur Cumberland glanced at the bottle the detective held up, saw the
label, saw the shape, and sank limply in his chair, his eyes starting,
his j