“She laid hold of it to look at the pills.”
“Did you leave her alone with it?”
“No, sir. Leastways—yes, I did for a minute or so, while I went into the back’us to get the sugar and a saucer and spoon.”
“Had she the box in her hands when you returned?”
“Yes, sir, I think she had. I think she was still smelling at the pills. I know the poor little innocents was lying one on one knee, and one on t’other, all flat, and her two hands was lifted with the box in ’em.”
“It was after that that you took the pills out of it to give the children?”
“Yes, sir; directly after. But Ann Dovey wouldn’t do nothing wrong to the pills, sir.”
“That will do,” said the coroner in his curt way. “Call Ann Dovey.”
Ann Dovey walked forward with a face as red as her new bonnet-strings. She had heard the whole colloquy: something seemed, too, to have put her out. Possessing scant veneration for coroners at the best of times, and none for the jury at present assembled, she did not feel disposed to keep down her temper.
The few first questions asked her, however, afforded no opportunity for resentment, for they were put quietly, and tended only to extract confirmation of Mrs. Reed’s evidence, as to fetching the pill-box from upstairs and administering the pills. Then the coroner cleared his throat.