The struggle he made at it was pitiful. As I noted what it cost him, I began to have new and curious thoughts concerning him and the whole matter under discussion.
"I shall never overcome the remorse roused in me by those few lines," he finally rejoined. "She showed a consideration for me--"
"What!"
The coroner"s exclamation showed all the surprise he felt. Mr.
Jeffrey tottered under it, then grew slowly pale as if only through our amazed looks he had come to realize the charge of inconsistency to which he had laid himself open.
"I mean--" he endeavored to explain, "that Mrs. Jeffrey showed an unexpected tenderness toward me by taking all the blame of our misunderstanding upon herself. It was generous of her and will do much toward making my memory of her a gentle one."
He was forgetting himself again. Indeed, his manner and attempted explanations were full of contradictions. To emphasize this fact Coroner Z. exclaimed,
"I should think so! She paid a heavy penalty for her professed lack of love. You believe that her mind was unseated?"
"Does not her action show it?"
"Unseated by the mishap occurring at her marriage?"
"Yes."
"You really think that?"
"Yes."
"By anything that pa.s.sed between you?"
"Yes."
"May I ask you to tell us what pa.s.sed between you on this point?"
"Yes."
He had uttered the monosyllable so often it seemed to come unconsciously from his lips. But he recognized almost as soon as we did that it was not a natural reply to the last question, and, making a gesture of apology, he added, with the same monotony of tone which had characterized these replies:
"She spoke of her strange guest"s unaccountable death more than once, and whenever she did so, it was with an unnatural excitement and in an unbalanced way. This was so noticeable to us all that the subject presently was tabooed amongst us; but though she henceforth spared us all allusion to it, she continued to talk about the house itself and of the previous deaths which had occurred there till we were forced to forbid that topic also. She was never really herself after crossing the threshold of this desolate house to be married. The shadow which lurks within its walls fell at that instant upon her life. May G.o.d have mercy--"
The prayer remained unfinished. His head which had fallen on his breast sank lower.
He presented the aspect of one who is quite done with life, even its sorrows.
But men in the position of Coroner Z. can not afford to be compa.s.sionate. Everything the bereaved man said deepened the impression that he was acting a part. To make sure that this was really so, the coroner, with just the slightest touch of sarcasm, quietly observed:
"And to ease your wife"s mind--the wife you were so deeply angered with--you visited this house, and, at an hour which you should have spent in reconciliation with her, went through its ancient rooms in the hope--of what?"
Mr. Jeffrey could not answer. The words which came from his lips were mere e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns.
"I was restless--mad--I found this adventure diverting. I had no real purpose in mind."
"Not when you looked at the old picture?"
"The old picture? What old picture?"
"The old picture in the southwest chamber. You took a look at that, didn"t you? Got up on a chair on purpose to do so?"
Mr. Jeffrey winced. But he made a direct reply.
"Yes, I gave a look at that old picture; got up, as you say, on a chair to do so. Wasn"t that the freak of an idle man, wandering, he hardly knows why, from room to room in an old and deserted house?"
His tormentor did not answer. Probably his mind was on his 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. .h.i.therto 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 a.s.sumption 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. .h.i.therto 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 solitary blowing out of the candle upon this scene of mournful death. Then with a struggling sense of having heard something which called for answer, he rose blindly to his feet and managed to let fall these words:
"You are mistaken--no one was there, or if any one was--it was not I. There is a man in this city who can prove it."
But when Mr. Jeffrey was asked to give the name of this man, he showed confusion and presently was obliged to admit that he could neither recall his name nor remember anything about him, but that he was some one whom he knew well, and who knew him well. He affirmed that the two had met and spoken near Soldiers" Home shortly after the sun went down, and that the man would be sure to remember this meeting if we could only find him.
As Soldiers" Home was several miles from the Moore house and quite out of the way of all his accustomed haunts, Coroner Z. asked him how he came to be there. He replied that he had just come from Rock Creek Cemetery. That he had been in a wretched state of mind all day, and possibly being influenced by what he had heard of the yearly vigils Mr. Moore was in the habit of keeping there, had taken a notion to stroll among the graves, in search of the rest and peace of mind he had failed to find in his aimless walks about the city.
At least, that was the way he chose to account for the meeting he mentioned. Falling into reverie again, he seemed to be trying to recall the name which at this moment was of such importance to him.
But it was without avail, as he presently acknowledged.
"I can not remember who it was. My brain is whirling, and I can recollect nothing but that this man and myself left the cemetery together on the night mentioned, just as the gate was being closed.
As it closes at sundown, the hour can be fixed to a minute. It was somewhere near seven, I believe; near enough, I am sure, for it to have been impossible for me to be at the Moore house at the time my unhappy wife is supposed to have taken her life. There is no doubt about your believing this?" he demanded with sudden haughtiness, as, rising to his feet, he confronted us in all the pride of his exceptionally handsome person.
"We wish to believe it," a.s.sented the coroner, rising in his turn.
"That our belief may become certainty, will you let us know, the instant you recall the name of the man you talked with at the cemetery gate? His testimony, far more than any word of yours, will settle this question which otherwise may prove a vexed one."
Mr. Jeffrey"s hand went up to his head. Was he acting a part or did he really forget just what it was for his own best welfare to remember? If he had forgotten, it argued that he was in a state of greater disturbance on that night than would naturally be occasioned by a mere lover"s quarrel with his wife.
Did the same thought strike my companion? I can not say; I can only give you his next words.
"You have said that your wife would not be likely to end her life in presence of any one but yourself. Yet you must see that some one was with her. How do you propose to reconcile your a.s.sertions with a fact so undeniable?"
"I can not reconcile them. It would madden me to try. If I thought any one was with her at that moment--"
"Well?"
Mr. Jeffrey"s eyes fell; and a startling change pa.s.sed over him.