"
"You did not see them?"
"No, sir."
"Yet you went over to the table?"
"Yes, sir, but I did not meddle with the packages. I had really
no business with them."
The coroner, surveying her sadly, went quickly on as if anxious to
terminate this painful examination.
"You have not told us what you did when you heard that pistol-shot."
"I ran away as soon as I could move; I ran madly from the house."
"Where?"
"Home."
"But it was half-past ten when you got home."
"Was it?"
"It was half-past ten when the man came to tell you of your
sister's death."
"It may have been."
"Your sister is supposed to have died in a few minutes. Where were
you in the interim?"
"God knows. I do not."
A wild look was creeping into her face, and her figure was swaying.
But she soon steadied it. I have never seen a more admirable
presence maintained in the face of a dreadful humiliation.
"Perhaps I can help you," rejoined the coroner, not unkindly. "Were
you not in the Congressional Library looking up at the lunettes and
gorgeously painted walls?"
"I?" Her eyes opened wide in wondering doubt. "If I was, I did
not know it. I have no remembrance of it."
She seemed to lose sight of her present position, the cloud under
which she rested, and even the construction which might be put upon
such a forgetfulness at a time confessedly prior to her knowledge
of the purpose and effect of the shot from which she had so
incontinently fled.
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