"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