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 d 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