ympathy which every
man felt for that dark figure of grief. She lifted her thick veil before
beginning to speak, and the extreme paleness and unbroken composure of
the lady produced a singular impression. This was not an impression of
hardness. Interesting femininity was the first thing to be felt in her
presence. She was not even enigmatic. It was only clear that the force
of a powerful character was at work to master the emotions of her
situation. Once or twice as she spoke she touched her eyes with her
handkerchief, but her voice was low and clear to the end.

Her husband, she said, had come up to his bedroom about his usual
hour for retiring on Sunday night. His room was really a dressing-room
attached to her own bedroom, communicating with it by a door which was
usually kept open during the night. Both dressing-room and bedroom were
entered by other doors giving on the passage. Her husband had always had
a preference for the greatest simplicity in his bedroom arrangements,
and liked to sleep in a small room. She had not been awake when he came
up, but had been half-aroused, as usually happened, when the light was
switched on in her husband's room. She had spoken to him. She had no
clear recollection of what she had said, as she had been very drowsy at
the time; but she had remembered that he had been out for a moonlight
run in the car, and she believed she had asked whether he had had a good
run, and what time it was. She had asked what the time was because
she felt as if she had only been a very short time asleep, and she had
expected her husband to be out very late. In answer to her question he
had told her it was half-past eleven, and had gone on to say that he had
changed his mind about going for a run.

'Did he say why?' the coroner asked.

'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 was 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 qu