d, saying,
however, as he passed me:

"The inquest will be held day after to-morrow in my office. Hold
yourself in readiness to be present. I regard you as one of my chief
witnesses."

I assured him I would be on hand, and, obeying a gesture of his finger,
retreated from the room; but I did not yet leave the house. A straight,
slim man, with a very small head but a very bright eye, was leaning on
the newel-post in the front hall, and when he saw me, started up so
alertly I perceived that he had business with me, and so waited for him
to speak.

"You are Miss Butterworth?" he inquired.

"I am, sir."

"And I am a reporter from the New York _World_. Will you allow me----"

Why did he stop? I had merely looked at him. But he did stop, and that
is saying considerable for a reporter from the New York _World_.

"I certainly am willing to tell you what I have told every one else," I
interposed, considering it better not to make an enemy of so judicious a
young man; and seeing him brighten up at this, I thereupon related all I
considered desirable for the general public to know.

I was about passing on, when, reflecting that one good turn deserves
another, I paused and asked him if he thought they would leave the dead
girl in that house all night.

He answered that he did not think they would. That a telegram had been
sent some time before to young Mr. Van Burnam, and that they were only
awaiting his arrival to remove her.

"Do you mean Howard?" I asked.

"Is he the elder one?"

"No."

"It is the elder one they have summoned; the one who has been staying at
Long Branch."

"How can they expect him then so soon?"

"Because he is in the city. It seems the old gentleman is going to
return on the _New York_, and as she is due here to-day, Franklin Van
Burnam has come to New York to meet him."

"Humph!" thought I, "lively times are in prospect," and for the first
time I remembered my dinner and the orders which had not been given
about some curtains which were to have been hung that day, and all the
other reasons I had for being at home.

I must have shown my feelings, much as I pride myself upon my
impassibility upon all occasions, for he immediately held out his arm,
with an offer to pilot me through the crowd to my own house; and I was
about to accept it when the door-bell rang so sharply that we
involuntarily stopped.

"A fresh witness or a telegram for the Coroner," whispered the reporter
in my ear.

I