"The people present will step back," declared the coroner; "you will have no trouble in taking your stand on the spot you occupied the other day."
"Here, then!" exclaimed the young man, taking a position near the centre of the room.
"And the widow?"
"Stood there."
"Facing you?"
"Yes."
"I see," intimated the coroner, pointing toward the windows. "Her back was to the yard while you stood with your face toward it." Then with a quick motion, summoning the witness back into the other room, asked, amid the breathless attention of the crowd, whom this bit of by-play had wrought up to expectation: "Did you observe any one go around to the back door while you stood there, and go away again without attempting to knock?"
Mr. Hildreth knitted his brow and seemed to think.
"Answer," persisted the coroner; "it is not a question that requires thought."
"Well, then, I did not," cried the witness, looking the other directly in the eye, with the first gleam of real manly feeling which he had yet displayed.