"Yes. This is only an inquiry into the place, time, and cause of death. No one is on trial for a crime as yet."
"You mean"--without any variation in accent--"that some one will be tried for the murder of my late husband?"
He was silent.
She put her next question in a perfectly cold and steady manner:
"You mean that I will be tried for the murder of my late husband?"
"Great heavens--no!" he cried, throwing himself forward with a violent start. "Who put such a monstrous thought into your head?"
Although the thought had frequently occurred to him, from her lips, and now, it came to him with a powerful shock.
"You."
"I--I put such a thought into your head! Mrs. Davenport, you cannot mean what you say? It is too dreadful!"
"I will not say you ever put the thought in as precise words as I have used; but at our first meeting it was in your mind, and at our first meeting it entered my mind that you considered it at all events possible that I might be tried for the murder of my husband. You need not be afraid of shocking me. Nothing can shock me now. What is the important fact you are keeping back? I wish to know it at once."