"It was calm and clear as usual, for all you saw?"
"Quite so."
"Stay. There is one other point. Was the deceased in any kind of embarrassment, so far as your cognizance goes, pecuniary, or else?"
"I feel quite sure that he was in no pecuniary embarrassment whatever," returned the witness warmly, anxious to do justice to his cousin's memory. "As to any other kind of embarrassment, I cannot speak. I am aware of none; and I think he was one of the least likely men to get into any."
That was all. Mr. Greatorex bowed to the coroner and gave place to another witness. A little dark woman in black, with an old-fashioned black chip bonnet on, and silver threads beginning to mix with her black hair; but her eyebrows were very black still. Certainly no two women could present a greater contrast in appearance than she and Miss Rye, although they were sisters.
"Your name is Julia Jones," began the coroner's man, who knew Mrs. Jones intimately in private life.
"Yes, it is Julia Jones," in a tart voice, and with an accent on the "Jones," as if the name grated on her tongue. And Mrs. Jones was sworn.
After some preliminary evidence, touching Mr. Ollivera's previous visits to her, and the length of time he had stayed, which she entered upon of her own accord and was not checked, Mrs. Jones was asked what she knew of the calamity. How it was first brought to her knowledge.
"The first was through my sister, Alletha Rye shrieking out from the first-floor landing below, a little before seven o'clock on Tuesday morning," responded Mrs. Jones, in the same tart tone; which was, in fact, habitual to her. "I was in my bedroom, the front room on the second floor, dressed up to my petticoat, and out I flew, thinking she must be on fire. She said something about Mr. Ollivera, and I ran down, and saw him lying in the chair. Jones's nephew, in his waistcoat and shirtsleeves, and his face all in a lather, for he was shaving, got into the room when I did."
"When did you see the deceased last, Mrs. Jones?" was the next question put, after the witness had described the appearance of the room, the pistol on the carpet, the blotted note on the table, the quantity of oil in the lamp, and so forth.