I started. This was a question which half of Washington had been asking itself for the last three months.
Would Mr. Jeffrey answer it? or, remembering that these questions were rather friendly than official, refuse to satisfy a curiosity which he might well consider intrusive? The set aspect of his features promised little in the way of information, and we were both surprised when a moment later he responded with a grim emphasis hardly to be expected from one of his impulsive temperament:
“Unhappily, no. My attentions never went so far.”
Instantly the coroner pounced on the one weak word which Mr. Jeffrey had let fall.
“Unhappily?” he repeated. “Why do you say, unhappily?”
Mr. Jeffrey flushed and seemed to come out of some dream.
“Did I say unhappily?” he inquired. “Well, I repeat it; Miss Tuttle would never have given me any cause for jealousy.”
The coroner bowed and for the present dropped her name out of the conversation.
“You speak again of the jealousy aroused in you by your wife’s impetuosities. Was this increased or diminished by the tone of the few lines she left behind her?”
The response was long in coming. It was hard for this man to lie. The struggle he made at it was pitiful. As I noted what it cost him, I began to have new and curious thoughts concerning him and the whole matter under discussion.