repeated ministrations, the tooth still throbbed; and she also was released after announcing resentfully that she'd seen "notings," heard "notings," and "didn't know notings" about the murder except having to get up and make coffee when she was like to die with the ache in her tooth. There was no one else to testify, except Cummack, who gave the hour, about a quarter or ten minutes to eight, when the deceased had left his house, and Mr. Gifning and his two guests, who testified to hearing the sound of Balfame's voice raised in song, followed a moment later by the report of a pistol. They also described minutely the position of the body when found. Indubitably the shot had been fired from the grove. The staff artists were forced to be content with a black sketch of a very long widow, who held her head[Pg 98] high and emanated an air of chill repose. One reporter, camera set, forced his way to her side as she was about to enter Mrs. Battle's limousine and begged her plaintively to raise her veil; but he might as well as have addressed a somnambulist; Mrs. Balfame did not even snub him. [Pg 98] "Why should they want a picture of me?" she asked Mrs. Battle, wonderingly. "It's poor Dave that is dead. Whoever heard of me outside of Elsinore?" "I guess you haven't amused yourself reading the papers. You've been written up as a beauty and the intellectual and social leader of Elsinore. Some distinction, that! The public is mighty interested in you all over the State and will be for several days yet, no doubt. Then we'll find the man and they'll forget all about the whole affair until the trial comes up." Mrs. Balfame, clad in full weeds, more dignified, stately and unapproachable than ever, ran the gauntlet of staring eyes at the church funeral, apparently unconscious of the immense crowd of women that had driven over from every township in Brabant County. That the women did not approve of her haughty head and tearless eyes, brilliant even behind the heavy crêpe, would have concerned her little if she had known it. Her mind was concentrated upon the future moment when this series of hideous ordeals would be over and she could re-enter the decent seclusion of private life. Mrs. Balfame may have had her faults, but a vulgar complaisance to publicity was not among them. She had also made up her mind sternly not to feel happy, not to rejoice in her freedom, not to make a plan for the
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