e I haven't got the nerve to do it alone!" Robert cried.
"I--somebody has to go to the Morgue, too! And suppose we should go down
there--I was there just once and I had the horrors for a month--suppose
we should go down there and find her, Anthony, all----"

"Hush!" said Anthony. "Don't go into the possibilities; there's a lady
present, Bob."

Vining almost came to earth for a moment.

"What?"

"To be sure. Mrs. Boller--Mr. Robert Vining."

He spoke directly at her, so that Robert, out of his emotional fog,
gained an idea of her location, and turned dizzily toward her. There was
upon his countenance a strained, heart-broken, half-apologetic smile as
he faced Beatrice Boller. He bowed, too, perfunctorily.

Then Robert raised his stricken eyes.

And as he raised them, a great shock ran through Robert, and after it he
stiffened. His eyes popped, as if he could not quite believe what he
saw, and his body swayed forward. Robert, with a hoarse, incoherent
scream, ran straight at Beatrice Boller and snatched away the hat from
under her arm.

"That's Mary's! That's Mary's!" he cried hysterically. "That's Mary's
hat, because I was with her the day she bought it, and I'd know it among
ten thousand hats! Yes, and it's torn and broken--it's all smashed on
this side!"

Greenish white, jaw sagging, Robert looked from one to the other of
them.

"You--you're afraid to tell me!" said he. "She--there was an accident! I
can see that by the hat. There was an accident and she was hurt
and--where is she now? Where is she now? Good God! Is she--dead?"

"She isn't dead," Anthony said queerly, because he had been looking at
Beatrice and feeling his flesh crawl as he looked.

"Then where is Mary? Why don't you tell me about it?" Robert stormed on.
"What's the matter? Is she badly hurt? Doesn't she want me? Hasn't she
tried to send for me?" And whirling upon Beatrice, the unfortunate young
man threw out his hands and cried: "You tell me, if they will not! What
has happened to her? Where did you get the hat?"

Normally, Beatrice Boller was the very last mortal in the world to
inflict pain upon a fellow-being; but the normal Beatrice was far away
just now.

As Anthony noted with failing heart, it was a big moment for the
outraged creature before Robert Vining, for she was about to make
another of the accursed sex to suffer. It did not seem humanly possible
that she could communicate her personal view of Mary to Robert; but
certai