kind look at her, called forth by the sight
of her misery:

"Does this hour agree with the time of her leaving the house?"

"I can not say. I think so. It was some time before or after seven.
I don't remember the exact minute."

"It would take fifteen for her to walk here. Did she walk?"

"I do not know. I didn't see her leave. My room is at the back of
the house."

"You can say if she left alone or in the company of her husband?"

"Mr. Jeffrey was not with her?"

"Was Mr. Jeffrey in the house?"

"He was not."

This last negative was faintly spoken.

The captain noticed this and ventured upon interrogating her further.

"How long had he been gone?"

Her lips parted; she was deeply agitated; but when she spoke it was
coldly and with studied precision.

"Mr. Jeffrey was not at home to-night at all. He has not been in
all day."

"Not at home? Did his wife know that he was going to dine out?"

"She said nothing about it."

The captain cut short his questions and in another moment I
understood why. A gentleman was standing in the doorway, whose face
once seen, was enough to stop the words on any man's lips. Miss
Tuttle saw this gentleman almost as quickly as we did and sank with
an involuntary moan to her knees.

It was Francis Jeffrey come to look upon his dead bride.

I have been present at many tragic scenes and have beheld men under
almost every aspect of grief, terror and remorse; but there was
something in the face of this man at this dreadful moment that was
quite new to me, and, as I judge, equally new to the other hardy
officials about me. To be sure he was a gentleman and a very
high-bred one at that; and it is but seldom we have to do with any
of his ilk.

Breathlessly we awaited his first words.

Not that he showed frenzy or made any display of the grief or
surprise natural to the occasion. On the contrary, he was the
quietest person present, and among all the emotions his white face
mirrored I saw no signs of what might be called sorrow. Yet his
appearance was one to wring the heart and rouse the most
contradictory conjectures as to just what chord in his evidently
highly strung nature throbbed most acutely to the horror and
astonishment of this appalling end of so short a married life.

His eye, which was fixed on the prostrate body of his bride, did
not yield up its secret. When he moved and came to where she lay
and caught his first sight of the ribbon and the pistol