ut
also with a seriousness which affected her in spite of herself and
effectually held back the protest it was in her heart to make. She was
glad of this when she read his story; but later on--

However, it is not for me to intrude Violet, or Violet's feelings into
an affair which she is so anxious to forget. I shall therefore from
this moment on, leave her as completely out of this tale of crime and
retribution as is possible and keep a full record of her work. When she
is necessary to the story, you will see her again. Meanwhile, read
with her, this relation of her employer's unhappy attempt to pursue an
investigation so openly dropped by the police. You will perceive, from
its general style and the accentuation put upon the human side of this
sombre story, a likeness to the former manuscript which may prove to
you, as it certainly did to Violet, to whose consideration she was
indebted for the readableness of the policeman's report, which in all
probability had been a simple statement of facts.

But there, I am speaking of Violet again. To prevent a further mischance
of this nature, I will introduce at once the above mentioned account.

II

No man in all New York was ever more interested than myself in the
Hasbrouck affair, when it was the one and only topic of interest at
a period when news was unusually scarce. But, together with many such
inexplicable mysteries, it had passed almost completely from my mind,
when it was forcibly brought back, one day, by a walk I took through
Lafayette Place.

At sight of the long row of uniform buildings, with their pillared
fronts and connecting balconies every detail of the crime which had
filled the papers at the time with innumerable conjectures returned to
me with extraordinary clearness, and, before I knew it, I found myself
standing stockstill in the middle of the block with my eye raised to the
Hasbrouck house and my ears--or rather my inner consciousness, for no
one spoke I am sure--ringing with a question which, whether the echo of
some old thought or the expression of a new one, so affected me by the
promise it held of some hitherto unsuspected clue, that I hesitated
whether to push this new inquiry then or there by an attempted interview
with Mrs. Hasbrouck, or to wait till I had given it the thought which
such a stirring of dead bones rightfully demanded.

You know what that question was. I shall have communicated it to you, if
you have not already guessed it, b