"It looks as if the pistol was attached
to her. That is something new in my experience. What do you think
it means?"
Alas! there was but one thing it could mean. The shot to which she
had succumbed had been delivered by herself. This fair and delicate
creature was a suicide.
But suicide in this place! How could we account for that? Had the
story of this room's ill-acquired fame acted hypnotically on her, or
had she stumbled upon the open door in front and been glad of any
refuge where her misery might find a solitary termination? Closely
scanning her upturned face, I sought an answer to this question, and
while thus seeking received a fresh shock which I did not hesitate
to communicate to my now none-too-sensitive companion.
"Look at these features," I cried. "I seem to know them, do you?"
He growled out a dissent, but stooped at my bidding and gave the
pitiful young face a pro longed stare. When he looked up again it
was with a puzzled contraction of his eyebrows.
"I've certainly seen it somewhere," he hesitatingly admitted, edging
slowly away toward the door. "Perhaps in the papers. Isn't she
like -?"
"Like!" I interrupted, "it is Veronica Moore herself; the owner of
this house and she who was married here two weeks since to Mr. Jeffrey.
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