Again Mr. Benson earnestly requested that any one knowing the least fact, however trivial, regarding the matter, would mention it.
Then Mrs. Markham spoke.
“I can tell you nothing but my own surmise,” she said; “I know nothing for certain, but I have reason to believe that Madeleine Van Norman had a deep sorrow,—such a one as would impel her to write that statement, and to act in accordance with it.”
“That is what I wished to know,” said Coroner Benson; “it is not necessary for you to detail the nature of her sorrow, or even to hint at it further, but the assurance that the message is in accordance with Miss Van Norman’s mental attitude goes far toward convincing me that her death is the outcome of that written declaration.”
“I know, too,” volunteered Kitty French, “that Madeleine meant every word she wrote there. She was miserable, and for the very reason that she herself stated!”
Mr. Benson pinched his glasses more firmly on his nose, and turned his gaze slowly toward Miss French.
Kitty had spoken impulsively, and perhaps too directly, but, though embarrassed at the sensation she had caused, she showed no desire to retract her statements.
“I am told,” said the coroner, his voice ringing out clearly in the strange silence that had fallen on the room, “that the initial on this paper designates Mr. Schuyler Carleton. I must therefore ask Mr. Carleton if he can explain the reference to himself.”
“I cannot,” said Schuyler Carleton, and only the intense silence allowed his low whisper to be heard. “Miss Van Norman was my affianced wife. We were to have been married to-day. Those two facts, I think, prove the existence of our mutual love. The paper is to me inexplicable.”
Tom Willard looked at the speaker with an expression of frank unbelief, and, indeed, most of the auditors’ faces betrayed incredulity.