"Your condition of mind and that of Mr. Jeffrey seem to have been
strangely alike," remarked the coroner.
"No, no!" she protested.
"Arguing a like source."
"No, no," she cried again, this time with positive agony. Then with
an effort which awakened respect for her powers of mind, if for
nothing else, she desperately added: "I can not say what was in his
heart that night, but I know what was in mine - dread of that old
house, to which I had been drawn in spite of myself, possibly by the
force of the tragedy going on inside it, culminating in a delirium
of terror, which sent me flying in an opposite direction from my home
and into places I had been accustomed to visit when my heart was
light and untroubled."
The coroner glanced at the jury, who unconsciously shook their heads.
He shook his, too, as he returned to the charge.
"Another question, Miss Tuttle. When you heard a pistol-shot
sounding from the depths of that dark library, what did you think it
meant?"
She put her hands over her ears - it seemed as if she could not
prevent this instinctive expression of recoil at the mention of the
death-dealing weapon -and in very low tones replied:
"Something dreadful; something superstitious. It was night, you
remember, and at night one has such horrible thoughts.
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