er on his entrance into his own home, and her first plan had been to
do so in her own proper character as my wife, but afterwards the freak
took her, as I have said, to personify the housekeeper whom my father
had cabled us to have in waiting at his house,--a cablegram which had
reached us too late for any practical use, and which we had therefore
ignored,--and fearing he might come early in the morning, before she
could be on hand to make the favorable impression she intended, she
wished to be left in the house that night; and I humored her. I did not
foresee the suffering that my departure might cause her, or the fears
that were likely to spring from her lonely position in so large and
empty a dwelling. Or rather, I should say, _she_ did not foresee them;
for she begged me not to stay with her, when I hinted at the darkness
and dreariness of the place, saying that she was too jolly to feel fear
or think of anything but the surprise my father and sisters would
experience in discovering that their very agreeable young housekeeper
was the woman they had so long despised."

"And why," persisted the Coroner, edging forward in his interest and so
allowing me to catch a glimpse of Mr. Gryce's face as he too leaned
forward in his anxiety to hear every word that fell from this remarkable
witness,--"why do you speak of her fear? What reason have you to think
she suffered apprehension after your departure?"

"Why?" echoed the witness, as if astounded by the other's lack of
perspicacity. "Did she not kill herself in a moment of terror and
discouragement? Leaving her, as I did, in a condition of health and good
spirits, can you expect me to attribute her death to any other cause
than a sudden attack of frenzy caused by terror?"

"Ah!" exclaimed the Coroner in a suspicious tone, which no doubt voiced
the feelings of most people present; "then you think your wife committed
suicide?"

"Most certainly," replied the witness, avoiding but two pairs of eyes in
the whole crowd, those of his father and brother.

"_With_ a hat-pin," continued the Coroner, letting his hitherto scarcely
suppressed irony become fully visible in voice and manner, "thrust into
the back of her neck at a spot young ladies surely would have but little
reason to know is peculiarly fatal! Suicide! when she was found crushed
under a pile of _bric-a-brac_, which was thrown down or fell upon her
hours after she received the fatal thrust!"

"I do not know how else