"It might mean only hesitation," said Heathcote. "How long do you suppose she remained standing on the footboard?"
"Hardly a minute---perhaps not more than thirty seconds. I heard the guard signal for the stopping of the train, and then I heard her shriek as she fell. It was almost instantaneous. The engine was just on the bridge when I first saw her. It was in the middle of the bridge when she fell. That will give you the best idea as to time."
"Not more than thirty seconds," said the Coroner, who knew every yard of the line. "Is there any one else here who can tell us anything about this poor girl's death?"
There was no one else; though there were twenty people in the room who had been in the train yesterday evening, and who had gone down into the gorge to see that poor crushed form lying amidst ferns and foxgloves, to look curiously at the small white face, the childish lips for ever mute in death. No one could tell any more, or indeed as much about the details of the catastrophe as Dr. Menheniot and the guard, both of whom had seen the fall: whereas no one else happened to have been looking out of window on the near side of the train.
"We will adjourn the inquest for a fortnight," said Mr. Heathcote presently, after a whispered consultation with the jury. "The matter is much too mysterious to be dismissed without a very careful investigation. A fortnight will give ample time for the friends of the deceased to come forward. I have ordered photographs to be taken, with a view to her identification. Burial cannot, of course, be delayed beyond the usual time."
There were morbid minds among the spectators who envied the photographer his ghastly office. The inquest was felt to have been disappointing. Revelations had been expected, and none had come. But Mr. Heathcote had pronounced the case deeply mysterious: and there was comfort in the idea that he might know more than he cared to reveal yet awhile.
Julian Wyllard had driven from Penmorval in his own particular dog-cart, with one of the finest horses in the district. Bothwell Grahame, who was a great walker and altogether independent in his habits, had come across the hills, and over cornfields and meadows, as straight as the crow flies. The master of Penmorval's smart trap and high-stepping gray were out of sight before Bothwell left the pathway in front of the Vital Spark, where he lingered to talk over the inquest with some of his Bodmin acquaintance. The young Scotchman was steeped to the eyes in true Caledonian pride of race; but he had none of the petty pride which makes a man scornful of that portion of the human family which earns its bread by humble avocations. He was as friendly with a railway-porter or a village tradesman as with the proudest landowner in the county; had not two sets of manners for high and low, or two distinct modes of speech for gentle and simple, the very intonation different for that inferior clay. Bothwell had never been able to understand why some of the men he knew talked to a tradesman or a servant just as they would have spoken to a dog, or, indeed, much less civilly than Bothwell spoke to his dogs. He was a staunch Conservative in most things; but in this one question of respect for his fellow-man he was an unmitigated Radical.