not that a ring I see now on your little finger?”
“It is; my seal ring which I always wear.”
“Will you pull it off?”
“Pull it off!”
“If you please; it is a simple test I am requiring of you, sir.”
The witness looked astonished, but pulled off the ring at once.
“Here it is,” said he.
“Thank you, but I do not want it. I merely want you to look at your finger.”
The witness complied, evidently more nonplussed than disturbed by this command.
“Do you see any difference between that finger and the one next it?”
“Yes; there is a mark about my little finger showing where the ring has pressed.”
“Very good; there were such marks on the fingers of the dead girl, who, as you say, had no rings on. I saw them, and perhaps you did yourself?”
“I did not; I did not look closely enough.”
“They were on the little finger of the right hand, on the marriage finger of the left, and on the forefinger of the same. On which fingers did your wife wear rings?”
“On those same fingers, sir, but I will not accept this fact as proving her identity with the deceased. Most women do wear rings, and on those very fingers.”
The Coroner was nettled, but he was not discouraged. He exchanged looks with Mr. Gryce, but nothing further passed between them and we were left to conjecture what this interchange of glances meant.
The witness, who did not seem to be affected either by the character of this examination or by the conjectures to which it gave rise, preserved his sang-froid, and eyed the Coroner as he might any other questioner, with suitable respect, but with no fear and but little impatience. And yet he must have known the horrible suspicion darkening the minds of many people present, and suspected, even if against his will, that this examination, significant as it was, was but the forerunner of another and yet more serious one.
“You are very determined,” remarked the Coroner in beginning again, “not to accept the very substantial proofs presented you of the identity between the object of this inquiry and your missing wife. But we are not yet ready to give up the struggle, and so I must ask if you heard the description given by Miss Ferguson of the manner in which your wife was dressed on leaving Haddam?
“I have.”
“Was it a correct account? Did she wear a black and white plaid silk and a hat trimmed with various colored ribbons and flowers?”
“She did.”
“Do you remember the hat? Were you with her when she bought it, or did you ever have your attention drawn to it in any particular way?”
“I remember the hat.”
“Is this it, Mr. Van Burnam?”
I was watching Howard, and the start he gave was so pronounced and the emotion he displayed was in such violent contrast to the self-possession he had maintained up to this point, that I was held spell-bound by the shock I received, and forebore to look at the object which the Coroner had suddenly held up for inspection. But when I did turn my head towards it, I recognized at once the multi-colored hat which Mr. Gryce had brought in from the third room of Mr. Van Burnam’s house on the evening I was there, and realized almost in the same breath that great as this mystery had hitherto seemed it was likely to prove yet greater before its proper elucidation was arrived at.
“Was that found in my father’s house? Where—where was that hat found?” stammered the witness, so far forgetting himself as to point towards the object in question.
“It was found by Mr. Gryce in a closet off your father’s dining-room, a short time after the dead girl was carried out.”
“I don’t believe it,” vociferated the young man, paling with something more than anger, and shaking from head to foot.
“Shall I put Mr. Gryce on his oath again?” asked the Coroner, mildly.
The young man stared; evidently these words failed to reach his understanding.
“Is it your wife’s hat?” persisted the Coroner with very little mercy. “Do you recognize it for the one in which she left Haddam?”
“Would to God I did not!” burst in vehement distress from the witness, who at the next moment broke down altogether and looked about for the support of his brother’s arm.
Franklin came forward, and the two brothers stood for a moment in the face of the whole surging mass of curiosity-mongers before them, arm in arm, but with very different expressions on their two proud faces. Howard was the first to speak.
“If that was found in the parlors of my father’s house,” he cried, “then the woman who was killed there was my wife.” And he started away with a wild air towards the door.
“Where are you going?” asked the Coroner, quietly, while an officer stepped softly before him, and his brother compassionately drew him back by the arm.
“I am going to take her from that horrible place; she is my wife. Father, you would not wish her to remain in that spot for another moment, would you, while we have a house we call our own?”
Mr. Van Burnam the senior, who had shrunk as far from sight as possible through these painful demonstrations, rose up at these words from his agonized son, and making him an encouraging gesture, walked hastily out of the room; seeing which, the young man became calmer, and though he did not cease to shudder, tried to restrain his first grief, which to those who looked closely at him was evidently very sincere.
“I would not believe it was she,” he cried, in total disregard of the presence he was in, “I would not believe it; but now——” A certain pitiful gesture finished the sentence, and neither Coroner nor jury seemed to know just how to proceed, the conduct of the young man being so markedly different from what they had expected. After a short pause, painful enough to all concerned, the Coroner, perceiving that very little could be done with the witness under the circumstances, adjourned the sitting till afternoon.
Chapter XIV.
A Serious Admission
I went at once to a restaurant. I ate because it was time to eat, and because any occupation was welcome that would pass away the hours of waiting. I was troubled; and I did not know what to make of myself. I was no friend to the Van Burnams; I did not like them, and certainly had never approved of any of them but Mr. Franklin, and yet I found myself altogether disturbed over the morning’s developments, Howard’s emotion having appealed to me in spite of my prejudices. I could not but think ill of him, his conduct not being such as I could honestly commend. But I found myself more ready to listen to the involuntary pleadings of my own heart in his behalf than I had been prior to his testimony and its somewhat startling termination.
But they were not through with him yet, and after the longest three hours I ever passed, we were again convened before the Coroner.
I saw Howard as soon as anybody did. He came in, arm in arm as before, with his faithful brother, and sat down in a retired corner behind the Coroner. But he was soon called forward.
His face when the light fell on it was startling to most of us. It was as much changed as if years, instead of hours, had elapsed since last we saw it. No longer reckless in its expression, nor easy, nor politely patient, it showed in its every lineament that he had not only passed through a hurricane of passion, but that the bitterness, which had been its worst feature, had not passed