re from his forehead. Silas Van Burnam had been
silent up to this moment and seemed inclined to continue so, but he
watched his younger son with painful intentness.

"Nonsense!" broke from Howard's lips as his brother ceased his
communication; but he took a step nearer the body, notwithstanding, and
then another and another till he was at its side again.

The hands had not been injured, as we have said, and upon these his eyes
now fell.

"They are like hers! O God! they are like hers!" he muttered, growing
gloomy at once. "But where are the rings? There are no rings to be seen
on these fingers, and she wore five, including her wedding-ring."

"Is it of your wife you are speaking?" inquired Mr. Gryce, who had edged
up close to his side.

The young man was caught unawares.

He flushed deeply, but answered up boldly and with great appearance of
candor:

"Yes; my wife left Haddam yesterday to come to New York, and I have not
seen her since. Naturally I have felt some doubts lest this unhappy
victim should be she. But I do not recognize her clothing; I do not
recognize her form; only the hands look familiar."

"And the hair?"

"Is of the same color as hers, but it's a very ordinary color. I do not
dare to say from anything I see that this is my wife."

"We will call you again after the doctor has finished his autopsy," said
Mr. Gryce. "Perhaps you will hear from Mrs. Van Burnam before then."

But this intimation did not seem to bring comfort with it. Mr. Van
Burnam walked away, white and sick, for which display of emotion there
was certainly some cause, and rejoining his father tried to carry off
the moment with the _aplomb_ of a man of the world.

But that father's eye was fixed too steadily upon him; he faltered as he
sat down, and finally spoke up, with feverish energy:

"If it is she, so help me, God, her death is a mystery to me! We have
quarrelled more than once lately, and I have sometimes lost my patience
with her, but she had no reason to wish for death, and I am ready to
swear in defiance of those hands, which are certainly like hers, and the
nameless something which Franklin calls a likeness, that it is a
stranger who lies there, and that her death in our house is a
coincidence."

"Well, well, we will wait," was the detective's soothing reply. "Sit
down in the room opposite there, and give me your orders for supper, and
I will see that a good meal is served you."

The three gentlemen, seeing no