ur wife was
dressed on leaving Haddam?

"I have."

"Was it a correct account? Did she wear a black and white plaid silk and
a hat trimmed with various colored ribbons and flowers?"

"She did."

"Do you remember the hat? Were you with her when she bought it, or did
you ever have your attention drawn to it in any particular way?"

"I remember the hat."

"Is this it, Mr. Van Burnam?"

I was watching Howard, and the start he gave was so pronounced and the
emotion he displayed was in such violent contrast to the self-possession
he had maintained up to this point, that I was held spell-bound by the
shock I received, and forebore to look at the object which the Coroner
had suddenly held up for inspection. But when I did turn my head towards
it, I recognized at once the multi-colored hat which Mr. Gryce had
brought in from the third room of Mr. Van Burnam's house on the evening
I was there, and realized almost in the same breath that great as this
mystery had hitherto seemed it was likely to prove yet greater before
its proper elucidation was arrived at.

"Was that found in my father's house? Where--where was that hat found?"
stammered the witness, so far forgetting himself as to point towards the
object in question.

"It was found by Mr. Gryce in a closet off your father's dining-room, a
short time after the dead girl was carried out."

"I don't believe it," vociferated the young man, paling with something
more than anger, and shaking from head to foot.

"Shall I put Mr. Gryce on his oath again?" asked the Coroner, mildly.

The young man stared; evidently these words failed to reach his
understanding.

"_Is_ it your wife's hat?" persisted the Coroner with very little
mercy. "Do you recognize it for the one in which she left Haddam?"

"Would to God I did not!" burst in vehement distress from the witness,
who at the next moment broke down altogether and looked about for the
support of his brother's arm.

Franklin came forward, and the two brothers stood for a moment in the
face of the whole surging mass of curiosity-mongers before them, arm in
arm, but with very different expressions on their two proud faces.
Howard was the first to speak.

"If that was found in the parlors of my father's house," he cried, "then
the woman who was killed there was my wife." And he started away with a
wild air towards the door.

"Where are you going?" asked the Coroner, quietly, while an officer
stepped softly before him, an