“I find that I do not love you as I thought. I can not live knowing this to be so. Pray God you may forgive me!
VERONICA.”
As the last word fell with a little tremble from Mr. Jeffrey’s lips, the coroner repeated:
“You still think these words were addressed to you by your wife; that in short they contain an explanation of her death?”
“I do.”
There was sharpness in the tone. Mr. Jeffrey was feeling the prick. There was agitation in it, too; an agitation he was trying hard to keep down.
“You have reason, then,” persisted the coroner, “for accepting this peculiar explanation of your wife’s death; a death which, in the judgment of most people, was of a nature to call for the strongest provocation possible.”
“My wife was not herself. My wife was in an over strained and suffering condition. For one so nervously overwrought many allowances must be made. She may have been conscious of not responding fully to my affection. That this feeling was strong enough to induce her to take her life is a source of unspeakable grief to me, but one for which you must find explanation, as I have so often said, in the terrors caused by the dread event at the Moore house, which recalled old tragedies and emphasized a most unhappy family tradition.”
The coroner paused a moment to let these words sink into the ears of the jury, then plunged immediately into what might be called the offensive part of his examination.
“Why, if your wife’s death caused you such intense grief, did you appear so relieved at receiving this by no means consoling explanation?”