By a miracle of fate, his children were not branded as a murderer's daughters.

Sebastian gave evidence at the inquest on the wife's body: "Self-inflicted--a recoil--accidental--I am SURE of it." His specialist knowledge--his assertive certainty, combined with that arrogant, masterful manner of his, and his keen, eagle eye, overbore the jury.

Awed by the great man's look, they brought in a submissive verdict of "Death by misadventure." The coroner thought it a most proper finding.

Mrs.Mallet had made the most of the innate Le Geyt horror of blood.

The newspapers charitably surmised that the unhappy husband, crazed by the instantaneous unexpectedness of his loss, had wandered away like a madman to the scenes of his childhood, and had there been drowned by accident while trying to cross a stormy sea to Lundy, under some wild impression that he would find his dead wife alive on the island.