Dr. Slingsby's cross-examination was directed to ascertaining as near as possible the time when the murder was committed, but this was a point on which the witness allowed himself to be irritatingly indefinite.

Dr. Slingsby repeated the evidence that he had given at the trial of Birchill as to the cause of death, and was again professionally indefinite as to the length of time the victim had been dead when he saw the body.

For that belief is similarly indefinite; it is what is called a belief in a general providence, and is not followed out into definite application, or displayed in its bearing on the grand totalthe entire course of human history.

His "some time to-morrow" sounded unnaturally indefinite.