“I shall never overcome the remorse roused in me by those few lines,” he finally rejoined. “She showed a consideration for me—”
“What!”
The coroner’s exclamation showed all the surprise he felt. Mr. Jeffrey tottered under it, then grew slowly pale as if only through our amazed looks he had come to realize the charge of inconsistency to which he had laid himself open.
“I mean—” he endeavored to explain, “that Mrs. Jeffrey showed an unexpected tenderness toward me by taking all the blame of our misunderstanding upon herself. It was generous of her and will do much toward making my memory of her a gentle one.”
He was forgetting himself again. Indeed, his manner and attempted explanations were full of contradictions. To emphasize this fact Coroner Z. exclaimed,
“I should think so! She paid a heavy penalty for her professed lack of love. You believe that her mind was unseated?”
“Does not her action show it?”
“Unseated by the mishap occurring at her marriage?”
“Yes.”
“You really think that?”