htened color
with which the girl answered this new interlocutor. We were not
destined to know at this time, for the coroner, when he spoke again,
pursued a different subject.

"How long was this before Mr. Jeffrey came in."

"Only a few minutes. I was terribly frightened at being left there
alone and was on my way to ask one of the other girls to come up and
stay with me, when I heard his key in the lock and came back. He had
entered the house and was standing near the door talking to an
officer, who had evidently come in with him. It was a different
officer from the one who had gone away with Miss Tuttle. Mr. Jeffrey
was saying, 'What's that? My wife hurt!' 'Dead, sir!' blurted out
the man. I had expected to see Mr. Jeffrey terribly shocked, but
not in so awful a way. It really frightened me to see him and I
turned to run, but found that I couldn't and that I had to stand
still and look whether I wanted to or not. Yet he didn't say a word
or ask a question."

"What did he do, Loretta?"

"I can not say; he was on his knees and was white--Oh, how white!
Yet he looked up when the man described how and where Mrs. Jeffrey,
had been found and even turned toward me when I said something
about his wife having left a message for him when she went out.
This message, which I almost hesitated to give after the awful news
of her death, was about the ending of some story, as you remember,
and it seemed heartless to speak of it at a moment like this, but
as she had told me to, I didn't dare to disobey her. So, with the
man listening to my every word, and Mr. Jeffrey looking as if he
would fall to the ground before I could finish, I repeated her
words to him and was surprised enough when he suddenly started
upright and went flying upstairs. But I was more surprised yet
when, at the top of the first flight, he stopped and, looking over
the balustrade, asked in a very strange voice where Miss Tuttle
was. For he seemed just then to want her more than anything else
in the world and looked beaten and wild when I told him that she
was already gone to Waverley Avenue. But he recovered himself
before the man could draw near enough to see his face, and rushed
into the sitting-room above and shut the door behind him, leaving
the officer and me standing down by the front door. As I didn't
know what to say to a man like him, and he didn't know what to
say to me, the time seemed long, but it couldn't have been very
many minute