any
facts or gossip detailed to her concerning them, that would seem to give
color to her fears and supply her with any actual grounds for her
apprehensions?"

"No; only such tales as came to her of their expensive ways of living
and somewhat headlong rush into all fashionable freaks and follies."

"And Gouverneur Hildreth? Any special gossip in regard to him?"

"No!"

There are some noes that are equivalent to affirmations. This was one of
them. Naturally the coroner pressed the question.

"I must request you to think again," he persisted. Then, with a change
of voice: "Are you sure you have never heard any thing specially
derogatory to this young man, or that Mrs. Clemmens had not?"

"I have friends in Toledo who speak of him as the fastest man about
town, if that could be called derogatory. As for Mrs. Clemmens, she may
have heard as much, and she may have heard more, I cannot say. I know
she always frowned when his father's name was mentioned."

"Miss Firman," proceeded the coroner, "in the long years in which you
have been more or less separated from Mrs. Clemmens, you have,
doubtless, kept up a continued if not frequent correspondence with her?"

"Yes, sir."

"Do you think, from the commencement and general tone of this letter,
which I found lying half finished on her desk, that it was written and
intended for yourself?"

Taking the letter from his outstretched hand, she fumbled nervously for
her glasses, put them on, and then glanced hurriedly at the sheet,
saying as she did so:

"There can be no doubt of it. She had no other friend whom she would
have been likely to address as 'Dear Emily.'"

"Gentlemen of the Jury, you have a right to hear the words written by
the deceased but a few hours, if not a few minutes, previous to the
brutal assault that has led to the present inquiry. Miss Firman, as the
letter was intended for yourself, will you be kind enough to read it
aloud, after which you will hand it over to the jury."

With a gloomy shake of her head, and a certain trembling in her voice,
that was due, perhaps, as much to the sadness of her task as to any
foreboding of the real nature of the words she had to read, she
proceeded to comply:

"DEAR EMILY:--I don't know why I sit down to write
to you to-day. I have plenty to do, and morning is
no time for indulging in sentimentalities. But I
feel strangely lonely and strangely anxious.
Nothing go