he few words the other had spread out for his perusal. Then he slowly
rose to his full height, as he answered, with some slight display of
compunction:

"I remember it perfectly now. It is not a letter to be proud of. I
hope--"

"Pray finish, Mr. Brotherson."

"That you are not seeking to establish a connection between this letter
and her violent death?"

"Letters of this sort are often very mischievous, Mr. Brotherson. The
harshness with which this is written might easily rouse emotions of
a most unhappy nature in the breast of a woman as sensitive as Miss
Challoner."

"Pardon me, Dr. Heath; I cannot flatter myself so far. You overrate my
influence with the lady you name."

"You believe, then, that she was sincere in her rejection of your
addresses?"

A start, too slight to be noted by any one but the watchful Sweetwater,
showed that this question had gone home. But the self-poise and mental
control of this man were perfect, and in an instant he was facing the
coroner again, with a dignity which gave no clew to the disturbance
into which his thoughts had just been thrown. Nor was this disturbance
apparent in his tones when he made his reply:

"I have never allowed myself to think otherwise. I have seen no reason
why I should. The suggestion you would convey by such a question is
hardly welcome, now. I pray you to be careful in your judgment of such a
woman's impulses. They often spring from sources not to be sounded even
by her dearest friends."

Just; but how cold! Dr. Heath, eyeing him with admiration rather than
sympathy, hesitated how to proceed; while Sweetwater, peering up from
his papers, sought in vain for some evidence of the bereaved lover
in the impressive but wholly dispassionate figure of him who had just
spoken. Had pride got the better of his heart? or had that organ always
been subordinate to the will in this man of instincts so varying, that
at one time he impressed you simply as a typical gentleman of leisure;
at another, as no more than a fiery agitator with powers absorbed by,
if not limited to the one cause he advocated; and again--and this seemed
the most contradictory of all--just the ardent inventor, living in a
tenement, with Science for his goddess and work always under his hand?
As the young detective weighed these possibilities and marvelled over
the contradictions they offered, he forgot the papers now lying
quiet under his hand. He was too interested to remember his own
part--