"

"Yes."

"By anything that passed between you?"

"Yes."

"May I ask you to tell us what passed between you on this point?"

"Yes."

He had uttered the monosyllable so often it seemed to come
unconsciously from his lips. But he recognized almost as soon as
we did that it was not a natural reply to the last question, and,
making a gesture of apology, he added, with the same monotony of
tone which had characterized these replies:

"She spoke of her strange guest's unaccountable death more than
once, and whenever she did so, it was with an unnatural excitement
and in an unbalanced way. This was so noticeable to us all that
the subject presently was tabooed amongst us; but though she
henceforth spared us all allusion to it, she continued to talk
about the house itself and of the previous deaths which had occurred
there till we were forced to forbid that topic also. She was never
really herself after crossing the threshold of this desolate house
to be married. The shadow which lurks within its walls fell at that
instant upon her life. May God have mercy--"

The prayer remained unfinished. His head which had fallen on his
breast sank lower.

He presented the aspect of one who is quite done with life, even
its sorrows.

But men in the position of Coroner Z. can not afford to be
compassionate. Everything the bereaved man said deepened the
impression that he was acting a part. To make sure that this was
really so, the coroner, with just the slightest touch of sarcasm,
quietly observed:

"And to ease your wife's mind--the wife you were so deeply angered
with--you visited this house, and, at an hour which you should have
spent in reconciliation with her, went through its ancient rooms in
the hope--of what?"

Mr. Jeffrey could not answer. The words which came from his lips
were mere ejaculations.

"I was restless--mad--I found this adventure diverting. I had
no real purpose in mind."

"Not when you looked at the old picture?"

"The old picture? What old picture?"

"The old picture in the southwest chamber. You took a look at that,
didn't you? Got up on a chair on purpose to do so?"

Mr. Jeffrey winced. But he made a direct reply.

"Yes, I gave a look at that old picture; got up, as you say, on a
chair to do so. Wasn't that the freak of an idle man, wandering, he
hardly knows why, from room to room in an old and deserted house?"

His tormentor did not answer. Probably his mind was on his