"I have heard of a blind man denying the existence of light," said that gentleman, "but never before of a sensible being like yourself urging the most untenable theories in face of such evidence as has been brought before us during this inquiry. If your wife committed suicide, or if the entrance of the point of a hat-pin into her spine was effected by accident, how comes the head of the pin to have been found so many feet away from her and in such a place as the parlor register?"
"It may have flown there when it broke, or, what is much more probable, been kicked there by some of the many people who passed in and out of the room between the time of her death and that of its discovery."
"But the register was found closed," urged the Coroner. "Was it not, Mr. Gryce?"
That person thus appealed to, rose for an instant.
"It was," said he, and deliberately sat down again.
The face of the witness, which had been singularly free from expression since his last vehement outbreak, clouded over for an instant and his eye fell as if he felt himself engaged in an unequal struggle. But he recovered his courage speedily, and quietly observed:
"The register may have been closed by a passing foot. I have known of stranger coincidences than that."
"Mr. Van Burnam," asked the Coroner, as if weary of subterfuges and argument, "have you considered the effect which this highly contradictory evidence of yours is likely to have on your reputation?"
"I have."
"And are you ready to accept the consequences?"