turn?"

"Yes, sir; I believe so. I don't remember. I was not looking up," was
the slightly confused reply.

"You passed, however, through the lane, and entered the main street by
the usual path?"

"Yes."

"And where did you go then?"

"To the depot."

"Ah!"

"I wished to leave the town. I had done with it."

"And did you do so, Mr. Hildreth?"

"I did."

"Where did you go?"

"To Albany, where I had left my traps."

"You took the noon train, then?"

"Yes, sir."

"Which leaves precisely five minutes after twelve?"

"I suppose so."

"Took it without stopping anywhere on the way?"

"Yes, sir."

"Did you buy a ticket at the office?"

"No, sir."

"Why?"

"I did not have time."

"Ah, the train was at the station, then?"

Mr. Hildreth did not reply; he had evidently been driven almost to the
end of his patience, or possibly of his courage, by this quick fire of
small questions.

The coroner saw this and pressed his advantage.

"Was the train at the station or not when you arrived there, Mr.
Hildreth?"

"I do not see why it can interest you to know," the witness retorted,
with a flash of somewhat natural anger; "but since you insist, I will
tell you that it was just going out, and that I had to run to reach it,
and only got a foothold upon the platform of the rear car at the risk of
my life."

He looked as if he wished it had been at the cost of his life, and
compressed his lips and moved restlessly from side to side as if the
battery of eyes levelled upon his face were so many points of red-hot
steel burning into his brain.

But the coroner, intent upon his duty, released not one jot of the
steady hold he had taken upon his victim.

"Mr. Hildreth," said he, "your position as the only person who
acknowledges himself to have been in this house during the half-hour
that preceded the assault, makes every thing you can tell us in
reference to your visit of the highest importance. Was the widow alone,
do you think, or did you see any thing--pause now and consider
well--_any thing_ that would lead you to suppose there was any one
beside her and yourself in the house?"

It was the suggestion of a just man, and Mr. Byrd looked to see the
witness grasp with all the energy of despair at the prospect of release
it held out. But Mr. Hildreth either felt his cause beyond the reach of
any such assistance, or his understanding was so dulled by misery he
could not see the advantage of acknowledging t