him and left the room."

The coroner, with a characteristic imperviousness to all expressions
of emotion, leaned back and surveyed the young man with a scrutinizing
glance. "And where did you go then?" he asked.

"To my own room."

"Did you meet anybody on the way?"

"No, sir."

"Hear any thing or see anything unusual?"

The secretary's voice fell a trifle. "No, sir."

"Mr. Harwell, think again. Are you ready to swear that you neither
met anybody, heard anybody, nor saw anything which lingers yet in your
memory as unusual?"

His face grew quite distressed. Twice he opened his lips to speak,
and as often closed them without doing so. At last, with an effort, he
replied:

"I saw one thing, a little thing, too slight to mention, but it was
unusual, and I could not help thinking of it when you spoke."

"What was it?"

"Only a door half open."