Page:Anna Katharine Green - Leavenworth Case.djvu/58

48 "Is that the only occasion upon which you have ever seen it?"

"No, sir,"—the secretary blushed—"I have seen it once since."

"When?"

"About three weeks ago."

"Under what circumstances?"

The secretary dropped his head, a certain drawn look making itself suddenly visible on his countenance.

"Will you not excuse me, gentlemen?" he asked, after a moment’s hesitation.

"It is impossible," returned the coroner.

His face grew even more pallid and deprecatory.

"I am obliged to introduce the name of a lady," he hesitatingly declared.

"We are very sorry," remarked the coroner.

The young man turned fiercely upon him, and I could not help wondering that I had ever thought him commonplace. "Of Miss Eleanore Leavenworth!" he cried.

At that name, so uttered, every one started but Mr. Gryce; he was engaged in holding a close and confidential confab with his finger-tips, and did not appear to notice.

"Surely it is contrary to the rules of decorum and the respect we all feel for the lady herself to introduce her name into this discussion," continued Mr. Harwell. But the coroner still insisting upon an answer, he refolded his arms (a movement indicative of resolution with him), and began in a low, forced tone to say:

"It is only this, gentlemen. One afternoon, about three weeks since, I had occasion to go to the library at an unusual hour. Crossing over to the mantel-piece