sion on
his lips."

The district attorney, who did not seem quite satisfied on a certain
point passed over by the major, now took the opportunity of saying:

"You assure us that you had no idea that this once lighthearted
sister of yours meditated suicide when she left you?"

"And I repeat it, sir."

"Then why did you immediately go to Mr. Jeffrey's drawer, where
you could have no business, unless it was to see if she had taken
his pistol with her?"

Miss Tuttle's head fell and a soft flush broke through the pallor
of her cheek.

"Because I was thinking of him. Because I was terrified for him.
He had left the house the morning before in a half-maddened condition
and had not come back to sleep or eat since. I did not know what a
man so outraged in every sacred feeling of love and honor might be
tempted to do. I thought of suicide. I remembered the old house
and how he had said, 'I don't believe her. I don't believe she ever
did so cold-blooded an act, or that any such dreadful machinery is
in that house. I never shall believe it till I have seen and handled
it myself. It is a nightmare, Cora. We are insane.' I thought of
this, sirs, and when I went into her room, to change the place of
the little note in the book, I went to his bureau drawer, not to
look for the pistol--I did not think of that then,--but to see if
the keys of the Moore house were still there. I knew that they were
kept in this drawer, for I had been present in the room when they
were brought in after the wedding. I had also been short-sighted
enough to conclude that if they were gone it was he who had taken
them. They were gone, and that was why I flew immediately from the
house to the old place in Waverley Avenue. I was concerned for Mr.
Jeffrey! I feared to find him there, demented or dead."

"But you had no key."

"No. Mr. Jeffrey had taken one of them and my sister the other.
But the lack of a key or even of a light--for the missing candles
were not taken by me[1]--could not keep me at home after I was
once convinced that he had gone to this dreadful house. If I
could not get in I could at least hammer at the door or rouse the
neighbors. Something must be done. I did not think what; I merely
flew."

"Did you know that the house had two keys?"

"Not then."

"But your sister did?"

"Probably."

"And finding the only key, as you supposed, gone, you flew to the
Moore house?"

"Immediately."

"And now what else?"