way of doing
things, I should say?"

"Perhaps; but principles, by which I suppose you mean my usual business
methods, do not govern me in my relations with my brother. He asked me a
favor, and I granted it. It would have to have been a much larger one
for me to have asked an explanation from him before doing so."

"Yet you are not on good terms with your brother; at least you have not
had the name of being, for some time?"

"We have had no quarrel."

"Did he return the keys you lent him?"

"No."

"Have you seen them since?"

"No."

"Would you know them if they were shown you?"

"I would know them if they unlocked our front door."

"But you would not know them on sight?"

"I don't think so."

"Mr. Van Burnam, it is disagreeable for me to go into family matters,
but if you have had no quarrel with your brother, how comes it that you
and he have had so little intercourse of late?"

"He has been in Connecticut and I at Long Branch. Is not that a good
answer, sir?"

"Good, but not good enough. You have a common office in New York, have
you not?"

"Certainly, the firm's office."

"And you sometimes meet there, even while residing in different
localities?"

"Yes, our business calls us in at times and then we meet, of course."

"Do you talk when you meet?"

"Talk?"

"Of other matters besides business, I mean. Are your relations friendly?
Do you show the same spirit towards each other as you did three years
ago, say?"

"We are older; perhaps we are not quite so voluble."

"But do you feel the same?"

"No. I see you will have it, and so I will no longer hold back the
truth. We are not as brotherly in our intercourse as we used to be; but
there is no animosity between us. I have a decided regard for my
brother."

This was said quite nobly, and I liked him for it, but I began to feel
that perhaps it had been for the best after all that I had never been
intimate with the family. But I must not forestall either events or my
opinions.

"Is there any reason"--it is the Coroner, of course, who is
speaking--"why there should be any falling off in your mutual
confidence? Has your brother done anything to displease you?"

"We did not like his marriage."

"Was it an unhappy one?"

"It was not a suitable one."

"Did you know Mrs. Van Burnam well, that you say this?"

"Yes, I knew her, but the rest of the family did not."

"Yet they shared in your disapprobation?"

"They felt the marriage more t