the boy.

"WILLIAM."

Six hours later another note was found, this time from the wife:

"FATHER:

"Tied to a rotting corpse what does one do? Lop off one's arm if
necessary to rid one of the contact. As all love between your son and
myself is dead, I can no longer live within the sound of his voice. As
this is his home, he is the one to remain in it. May our child reap the
benefit of his mother's loss and his father's affection.

"RHODA."

Both were gone, and gone forever. Simultaneous in their departure, they
preserved each his own silence and sent no word back. If the one went
east and the other west, they may have met on the other side of the
globe, but never again in the home which sheltered their boy. For him
and for his grandfather they had sunk from sight in the great sea of
humanity, leaving them stranded on an isolated and mournful shore. The
grand-father steeled himself to the double loss, for the child's sake;
but the boy of eleven succumbed. Few of the world's great sufferers, of
whatever age or condition, have mourned as this child mourned, or shown
the effects of his grief so deeply or so long. Not till he had passed
his majority did the line, carved in one day in his baby forehead, lose
any of its intensity; and there are those who declare that even later
than that, the midnight stillness of the house was disturbed from time
to time by his muffled shriek of "Mother! Mother!", sending the servants
from the house, and adding one more horror to the many which clung about
this accursed mansion.

Of this cry Violet had heard, and it was that and the door--But I have
already told you about the door which she was still looking for,
when her two companions suddenly halted, and she found herself on the
threshold of the library, in full view of Mr. Van Broecklyn and his two
guests.

Slight and fairy-like in figure, with an air of modest reserve more in
keeping with her youth and dainty dimpling beauty than with her errand,
her appearance produced an astonishment none of which the gentlemen were
able to disguise. This the clever detective, with a genius for social
problems and odd elusive cases! This darling of the ball-room in satin
and pearls! Mr. Spielhagen glanced at Mr. Cornell, and Mr. Cornell at
Mr. Spielhagen, and both at Mr. Upjohn, in very evident distrust. As for
Violet, she had eyes only for Mr. Van Broecklyn who stood before her in
a surprise equal to that of the others but with more restraint