d of hire and turned with a bow
toward the coroner.

Miss Tuttle settled into a greater rigidity. I pass over the
preliminary examination of this important witness and proceed at once
to the point when the coroner, holding out the two or three lines
of writing which Mr. Jeffrey had declared to have been left him by
his wife, asked:

"Are these words in your wife's handwriting?"

Mr. Jeffrey replied hastily, and, with just a glance at the paper
offered him:

"They are."

The coroner pressed the slip upon him.

"Look at them carefully," he urged. "The handwriting shows hurry
and in places is scarcely legible. Are you ready to swear that
these words were written by your wife and by no other?"

Mr. Jeffrey, with just a slight contraction of his brow expressive
of annoyance, did as he was bid. He scanned, or appeared to scan,
the small scrap of paper which he now took into his own hand.

"It is my wife's writing," he impatiently declared. "Written, as all
can see, under great agitation of mind, but hers without any doubt."

"Will you read aloud these words for our benefit?" asked the coroner:

It was a cruel request, causing an instinctive protest from the
spectators. But no protest disturbed Coroner Z. He had his reasons,
no doubt, for thus trying this witness, and when Coroner Z. had
reason for anything it took more than the displeasure of the crowd
to deter him.

Mr. Jeffrey, who had subdued whatever indignation he may have felt
at this unmistakable proof of the coroner's intention to have his
own way with him whatever the cost to his sensitiveness or pride,
obeyed the latter's command in firmer tones than I expected.

The lines he was thus called upon to read may bear repetition:

"I find that I do not love you as I thought. I can not live knowing
this to be so. Pray God you may forgive me!

VERONICA."

As the last word fell with a little tremble from Mr. Jeffrey's lips,
the coroner repeated:

"You still think these words were addressed to you by your wife;
that in short they contain an explanation of her death?"

"I do."

There was sharpness in the tone. Mr. Jeffrey was feeling the prick.
There was agitation in it, too; an agitation he was trying hard to
keep down.

"You have reason, then," persisted the coroner, "for accepting this
peculiar explanation of your wife's death; a death which, in the
judgment of most people, was of a nature to call for the strongest
provocation possibl