such as might be made by any attempt to escape
on the part of Gabrielle Penmore, must certainly
have caught her attention instantly.

And ever and anon she would steal to the
door, and, with outstretched neck and suspended
breath, would listen till the very stillness seemed
a sound, and the solitude a presence.

CHAPTER, XXII. AN UNIMPRESSIVE CEREMONY.

THE inquest was held in the large upper room
of the Duke of Cumberland public-house, which
was not many doors off from the house in
Beaumont-street, with which we have had so much to
do. The coroner was a gentleman of skill and
experience. The jury included among its
numbers, as usual, a few men of sense and discretion,
and a good many exceedingly opinionated gentlemen,
with thick skulls, and a great opinion of
their own powers of discernment and observation.

Although the inquest itself was held at the
adjacent public-house, it was, of course, necessary
that the jury should visit the house in which
the death had taken place, in order that they
might go through the necessary preliminary of
inspecting the body of the person whose death
was to be the subject of inquiry. What a houseful
it seemed as they came crowding into the
passage, and trooping up the narrow staircase,
and bulging against the banisters, that
were so weak and yielding. They looked about
them, too, as if they expected to see something
bearing upon the case in every corner of the
house.

In the room, the room, which they had come
to visit, they were received by Jane Cantanker,
and many were the furtive glances directed
towards her by such members of the jury as had
already heard rumours of the attachment of this
woman to her late mistress, and of the suspicions
of foul play which she was said to entertain.
The woman's looks were terrible. The watch
she had kept, the emotion she had undergone,
had told upon her already. She was not weeping
now, but her eyes were red and raw-looking,
and fierce suspicion glared out of them, so that
none of those present cared to encounter their
glances. The jury had not much to say, nor any
reason for remaining long where they were.
This was not a case where there were wounds
to inspect, or tracks of blood to follow, or
implements of violence to examine. Looking on
that face, on which the awful majesty of Death
had settled, it seemed a sort of impertinence
almost to doubt about the manner of this
unfortunate lady's decease—the expression was so
calm and so quiet.

The jurymen lingered about a little while,
looked at the prints against the wall, and at the
different objects on the chimney-piece, and then
they began to descend the stairs in the same
order as they had come up, but with something
more of alacrity. They had got over that sight
which we all flinch from a little. They had got
out of the presence of Death, and, say what you
will, it was a relief.

Before leaving, the coroner had ventured to
make an inquiry:

"Had anything been found?" meaning any
bottle or other vessel which might have contained
the poison.

"Every part of the room had been searched
diligently," was the answer, " but nothing of the
kind had been discovered." The woman stood
glaring like a tigress by the dead body of her
mistress. " It was not likely that anything of
the kind would be found among her mistress's
things," she said.

The coroner felt that this was not the moment
to ask any more questions. He would shortly be
able to put them more authoritatively in his
professional capacity. So he withdrew to the Duke
of Cumberland, where the jury was already
assembled, and whither he was shortly followed
by Jane Cantanker, who was indeed one of the
principal witnesses to be examined that day.

There are few ceremonials connected with our
administration of justice which are less imposing,
less picturesque, if the expression may be
allowed, than that first judicial inquiry which it
is the business of the coroner to institute in all
cases of a suspicious nature, and which is called
an inquest. It can be held anywhere, is held
oftenest, perhaps, at a public-house, and seldom,
indeed, in any building where anything of
architectural pretension can give dignity to the scene.
There are no court-ushers, no officials in
costume, no judges in scarlet robes, or even barristers
in wigs and gowns. The coroner and jury
sit at a table which was probably the night before
used by the members of some convivial meeting,
and is indented with the scars which have been
left by pewter pots beaten against the board by
enthusiastic gentlemen in token of applause. It
is, for the most part, a squalid scene. Squalid
people, in the main, are examined at such tribunals,
and the circumstances which are elicited
are, for the most part, squalid also.

Gin, beer, stale tobacco, stunted forms,
contracted foreheads, blackened eyes, greasy fustian
clothing, servile grovelling, savage effrontery,
drunkenness, violence, and crime in general, all
these are important elements which go to make
up, in the mass, the kind of life which it is most
commonly the business of coroners to look into
in the course of their inquiries, and very grateful
we ought to be to those who undertake to face
such unpalatable things in the performance of a
public duty.

This present inquiry, however, was of a
different sort; and it is rare for a coroner's jury to
be brought together to inquire into circumstances
with which people in the station of life occupied
by our various characters are mixed up. " Quite
genteel life, you know," the beadle had said,
when arguing with a gentleman in the
greengrocery line who didn't want to attend.
"Connected with the governments of our West India
Hislands, and practising the bar as a profession.