II. THE CORONER'S INQUEST

"The baby figure of the giant mass
Of things to come."
--Troilus and Cressida.

FOR a few minutes I sat dazed by the sudden flood of light greeting
me from the many open windows; then, as the strongly contrasting
features of the scene before me began to impress themselves upon my
consciousness, I found myself experiencing something of the same
sensation of double personality which years before had followed an
enforced use of ether. As at that time, I appeared to be living two
lives at once: in two distinct places, with two separate sets of
incidents going on; so now I seemed to be divided between two
irreconcilable trains of thought; the gorgeous house, its elaborate
furnishing, the little glimpses of yesterday's life, as seen in the
open piano, with its sheet of music held in place by a lady's fan,
occupying my attention fully as much as the aspect of the throng of
incongruous and impatient people huddled about me.

Perhaps one reason of this lay in the extraordinary splendor of the
room I was in; the glow of satin, glitter of bronze, and glimmer of
marble meeting the eye at every turn. But I am rather inclined to think
it was mainly due to the force and eloquence of a certain picture which
confronted me from the opposite wall. A sweet picture--sweet enough and
poetic enough to have been conceived by the most idealistic of artists:
simple, too--the vision of a young flaxen-haired, blue-eyed coquette,