next
line of inquiry. But Mr. Jeffrey did not take his silence with the
calmness he had shown prior to the last attack. As no word came
from his unwelcome guest, he paused in his rapid pacing and,
casting aside with one impulsive gesture his hitherto imperfectly
held restraint, he cried out sharply:

"Why do you ask me these questions in tones of such suspicion? Is
it not plain enough that my wife took her own life under a
misapprehension of my state of mind toward her, that you should feel
it necessary to rake up these personal matters, which, however
interesting to the world at large, are of a painful nature to me?"

"Mr. Jeffrey," retorted the other, with a sudden grave assumption of
dignity not without its effect in a case of such serious import, "we
do nothing without purpose. We ask these questions and show this
interest because the charge of suicide which has hitherto been made
against your wife is not entirely sustained by the facts. At least
she was not alone when she took her life. Some one was in the house
with her."

It was startling to observe the effect of this declaration upon him.

"Impossible!" he cried out in a protest as forcible as it was
agonized. "You are playing with my misery. She could have had no
one there; she would not. There is not a man living before whom she
would have fired that deadly shot; unless it was myself,--unless it
was my own wretched, miserable self."

The remorseful whisper in which those final words were uttered
carried them to my heart, which for some strange and unaccountable
reason had been gradually turning toward this man. But my less
easily affected companion, seeing his opportunity and possibly
considering that it was this gentleman's right to know in what a
doubtful light he stood before the law, remarked with as light a
touch of irony as was possible:

"You should know better than we in whose presence she would choose
to die--if she did so choose. Also who would be likely to tie the
pistol to her wrist and blow out the candle when the dreadful deed
was over."

The laugh which seemed to be the only means of violent expression
remaining to this miserable man was kept down by some amazing thought
which seemed to paralyze him. Without making any attempt to refute
a suggestion that fell just short of a personal accusation, he sank
down in the first chair he came to and became, as it were, lost in
the vision of that ghastly ribbon-tying and the solitar