vious to his making his will. There was
no heart disease then; that I am ready to take my oath upon."

Hartley Benson's rigid look unfastened itself from the door and turned
slowly toward the sombre face of the speaker, while Uncle Joe, with an
increased expression of distress, looked slowly around as if he half
hoped, half feared to behold his favorite nephew advance upon them from
some shadowy corner.

"My father consulted you, then?" said the former, in his slow, reserved
way. "Did not that evince some suspicion of disease on his part?"

"Possibly; a man in a despondent frame of mind will often imagine he has
some deadly complaint or other. But he was quite sound; too sound, he
seemed to think. Your father was not a happy man, Mr. Benson."

There was meaning in the tone, and I was not surprised to observe
Hartley draw back. "Why," said he, "do you think--"

"I think nothing," broke in the doctor; "only"--and here he brought down
his hand vigorously upon the table--"there has been prussic acid in the
glass from which Mr. Benson drank this evening. The smell of bitter
almonds is not to be mistaken."

An interval of silent horror followed this announcement, then a vehement
"Great Heaven!" broke from the lips of Uncle Joe, while Hartley Benson,
growing more and more rigid in his bearing, fixed his eyes on the
doctor's face and barely ejaculated:

"Poison?"

"I say this," continued the doctor, too intent upon his own theory to
notice either the growth of a terrible fear on the face of Uncle Joe, or
the equally remarkable expression of subdued expectation on that of the
son, "because long experience has taught me the uselessness of trying to
hide such a fact as suicide, and also because, being the coroner of the
county, it is my duty to warn you that an investigation will have to
take place which will require certain precautions on my part, such as
the sealing up of his papers, etc."

"That is true," came from the lips of both brother and son, over whom a
visible change had passed at the word "suicide."

"But I cannot think--" the former began in an agitated voice.

"That my father would do such a deed," interposed the latter. "It does
not seem probable, and yet he was a very wretched man, and grief will
often drive the best of us to despair."

Uncle Joe gave his nephew a strange look, but said no more. The doctor
went quietly on:

"I do not know what your father's troubles were, but that he committed
suici