"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 possible."

"My wife was not herself. My wife was in an over strained and
suffering condition. For one so nervously overwrought many
allowances must be made. She may have been conscious of not
responding fully to my affection. That this feeling was strong
enough to induce her to take her life is a source of unspeakable
grief to me, but one for which you must find explanation, as I have
so often said, in the terrors caused by the dread event at the
Moore house, which recalled old tragedies and emphasized a most
unhappy family tradition."

The coroner paused a moment to let these words sink into the ears
of the jury, then plunged immediately into what might be called the
offensive part of his examination.

"Why, if your wife's death caused you such intense grief, did you
appear so relieved at receiving this by no means consoling
explanation?"

At an implication so unmistakably suggestive of suspicion Mr.
Jeffrey showed fire for the first time.

"Whose word have you for that? A servant's, so newly come into my
house that her very features are still strange to me. You must
acknowledge that a person of such marked inexperience can hardly be
thought to know me or to interpret rightly the feelings of my heart