r why or by whom it was
done. One man has been arrested for it and another has not. If you will
give me two weeks of complete freedom, I will point out to you which is
the veritable man of blood, and may Heaven have mercy on his soul!"

"She is mad," signified the Superintendent in by-play to Mr. Gryce.

But the latter shook his head; she was not mad yet.

"I know," she continued, without a hint of the timidity which seemed
natural to her under other circumstances, "that this must seem a
presumptuous request from one like me, but it is only by granting it
that you will ever be able to lay your hand on the murderer of Mrs. Van
Burnam. For I will never speak if I cannot speak in my own way and at my
own time. The agonies I have suffered must have some compensation.
Otherwise I should die of horror and my grief."

"And how do you hope to gain compensation by this delay?" expostulated
the Superintendent. "Would you not meet with more satisfaction in
denouncing him here and now before he can pass another night in fancied
security?"

But she only repeated: "I have said two weeks, and two weeks I must
have. Two weeks in which to come and go as I please. Two weeks!" And no
argument they could advance succeeded in eliciting from her any other
response or in altering in any way her air of quiet determination with
its underlying suggestion of frenzy.

Acknowledging their mutual defeat by a look, the Superintendent and
detective drew off to one side, and something like the following
conversation took place between them.

"You think she's sane?"

"I do."

"And will remain so two weeks?"

"If humored."

"You are sure she is implicated in this crime?"

"She was a witness to it."

"And that she speaks the truth when she declares that she is the only
person who can point out the criminal?"

"Yes; that is, she is the only one who will do it. The attitude taken by
the Van Burnams, especially by Howard just now in the presence of this
girl, shows how little we have to expect from them."

"Yet you think they know as much as she does about it?"

"I do not know what to think. For once I am baffled, Superintendent.
Every passion which this woman possesses was roused by her unexpected
meeting with Howard Van Burnam, and yet their indifference when
confronted, as well as her present action, seems to argue a lack of
connection between them which overthrows at once the theory of his
guilt. Was it the sight of Franklin, then, w