Benson's rigid look unfastened itself from the door and turned slowly toward the sombre face of the speaker, while Uncle Joe, with an increased expression of distress, looked slowly around as if he half hoped, half feared to behold his favorite nephew advance upon them from some shadowy corner. "My father consulted you, then?" said the former, in his slow, reserved way. "Did not that evince some suspicion of disease on his part?" "Possibly; a man in a despondent frame of mind will often imagine he has some deadly complaint or other. But he was quite sound; too sound, he seemed to think. Your father was not a happy man, Mr. Benson." There was meaning in the tone, and I was[68] not surprised to observe Hartley draw back. "Why," said he, "do you think—" [68] "I think nothing," broke in the doctor; "only"—and here he brought down his hand vigorously upon the table—"there has been prussic acid in the glass from which Mr. Benson drank this evening. The smell of bitter almonds is not to be mistaken." An interval of silent horror followed this announcement, then a vehement "Great Heaven!" broke from the lips of Uncle Joe, while Hartley Benson, growing more and more rigid in his bearing, fixed his eyes on the doctor's face and barely ejaculated: "Poison?" "I say this," continued the doctor, too intent upon his own theory to notice either the growth of a terrible fear on the face of Uncle Joe, or the equally remarkable expression of subdued expectation on that of the son, "because long experience has taught me the uselessness of trying to hide such a fact as suicide, and also because, being the coroner of the county, it is my duty to warn you that an investigation will have to take place which will require certain[69] precautions on my part, such as the sealing up of his papers, etc." [69] "That is true," came from the lips of both brother and son, over whom a visible change had passed at the word "suicide." "But I cannot think—" the former began in an agitated voice. "That my father would do such a deed," interposed the latter. "It does not seem probable, and yet he was a very wretched man, and grief will often drive the best of us to despair."
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