le of the door.

"Are we there already?" asked the young man, with a shudder. "I wish
you had not considered it necessary for me to see her. I shall detect
nothing familiar in her, I know."

Mr. Gryce bowed, repeated that it was a mere formality, and followed the
young gentleman into the building and afterwards into the room where the
dead body lay. A couple of doctors and one or two officials stood about,
in whose faces the young man sought for something like encouragement
before casting his eyes in the direction indicated by the detective. But
there was little in any of these faces to calm him, and turning shortly
away, he walked manfully across the room and took his stand by the
detective.

"I am positive," he began, "that it is not my wife----" At this moment
the cloth that covered the body was removed, and he gave a great start
of relief. "I said so," he remarked, coldly. "This is no one I know."

His sigh was echoed in double chorus from the doorway. Glancing that way
he encountered the faces of his father and elder brother, and moved
towards them with a relieved air that made quite another man of him in
appearance.

"I have had my say," he remarked. "Shall I wait outside till you have
had yours?"

"We have already said all that we had to," Franklin returned. "We
declared that we did not recognize this person."

"Of course, of course," assented the other. "I don't see why they should
have expected us to know her. Some common suicide who thought the house
empty--But how did she get in?"

"Don't you know?" said Mr. Gryce. "Can it be that I forgot to tell you?
Why, she was let in at night by a young man of medium height"--his eye
ran up and down the graceful figure of the young _elegant_ before him as
he spoke--"who left her inside and then went away. A young man who had a
key----"

"A _key_? Franklin, I----"

Was it a look from Franklin which made him stop? It is possible, for he
turned on his heel as he reached this point, and tossing his head with
quite a gay air, exclaimed: "But it is of no consequence! The girl is a
stranger, and we have satisfied, I believe, all the requirements of the
law in saying so, and may now drop the matter. Are you going to the
club, Franklin?"

"Yes, but----" Here the elder brother drew nearer and whispered
something into the other's ear, who at that whisper turned again towards
the place where the dead woman lay. Seeing this movement, his anxious
father wiped the moistu