“Is this letter—­a letter of threat you will remember—­the only communication which passed between you and Miss Challoner after this unfortunate passage of arms at the Clermont?”

“Yes.  I had no wish to address her again.  I had exhausted in this one outburst whatever humiliation I felt.”

“And she?  Did she give no sign, make you no answer?”

“None whatever.”  Then, as if he found it impossible to hide this hurt to his pride, “She did not even seem to consider me worthy the honour of an added rebuke.  Such arrogance is, no doubt, commendable in a Challoner.”

This time his bitterness did not pass unrebuked by the coroner: 

“Remember the grey hairs of the only Challoner who can hear you, and respect his grief.”

Mr. Brotherson bowed.

“I have finished,” said he.  “I shall have nothing more to say on the subject.”  And he drew himself up in expectation of the dismissal he evidently thought pending.

But the coroner was not done with him by any means.  He had a theory in regard to this lamentable suicide which he hoped to establish by this man’s testimony, and, in pursuit of this plan, he not only motioned to Mr. Brotherson to reseat himself, but began at once to open a fresh line of examination by saying: 

“You will pardon me, if I press this matter.  I have been given to understand that notwithstanding your break with Miss Challoner, you have kept up your visits to the Clermont and were even on the spot at the time of her death.”

“On the spot?”

“In the hotel, I mean.”

“There you are right; I was in the hotel.”

“At the time of her death?”

“Very near the time.  I remember hearing some disturbance in the lobby behind me, just as I was passing out at the Broadway entrance.”

“You did, and did not return?”

“Why should I return?  I am not a man of much curiosity.  There was no reason why I should connect a sudden alarm in the lobby of the Clermont with any cause of special interest to myself.”

This was so true and the look which accompanied the words was so frank that the coroner hesitated a moment before he said: 

“Certainly not, unless—­well, to be direct, unless you had just seen Miss Challoner and knew her state of mind and what was likely to follow your abrupt departure.”

“I had no interview with Miss Challoner.”

“But you saw her?  Saw her that evening and just before the accident?”

Sweetwater’s papers rattled; it was the only sound to be heard in that moment of silence.  Then—­“What do you mean by those words?” inquired Mr. Brotherson, with studied composure.  “I have said that I had no interview with Miss Challoner.  Why do you ask me then, if I saw her?”

“Because I believe that you did.  From a distance possibly, but yet directly and with no possibility of mistake.”