"Oh! there's no hope of that," muttered the doctor, lifting one of the hands, and letting it fall again. "Still--" he cast a side look at his companion, who gave him a meaning nod--"it might be well enough to lift this cabinet sufficiently for me to lay my hand on her heart." They accordingly did this; and the doctor, leaning down, placed his hand over the poor bruised breast. "No life," he murmured. "She has been dead some hours. Do you think we had better release the head?" he went on, glancing up at the portly man at his side. But the latter, who was rapidly growing serious, made a slight protest with his finger, and turning to me, inquired, with sudden authority: "What did you mean when you said that the house had been empty till last night?" "Just what I said, sir. It was empty till about midnight, when two persons----" Again I felt my dress twitched, this time very cautiously. What did the woman want? Not daring to give her a look, for these men were only too ready to detect harm in everything I did, I gently drew my skirt away and took a step aside, going on as if no interruption had occurred. "Did I say persons? I should have said a man and a woman drove up to the house and entered. I saw them from my window." "You did?" murmured my interlocutor, whom I had by this time decided to be a detective. "And this is the woman, I suppose?" he proceeded, pointing to the poor creature lying before us. "Why, yes, of course. Who else can she be? I did not see the lady's face last night, but she was young and light on her feet, and ran up the stoop gaily." "And the man? Where is the man? I don't see him here." "I am not surprised at that. He went very soon after he came, not ten minutes after, I should say. That is what alarmed me and caused me to have the house investigated. It did not seem natural or like any of the Van Burnams to leave a woman to spend the night in so large a house alone." "You know the Van Burnams?" "Not well. But that don't signify. I know what report says of them; they are gentlemen." "But Mr. Van Burnam is in Europe." "He has two sons." "Living here?" "No; the unmarried one spends his nights at Long Branch, and the other is with his wife somewhere in Connecticut." "How did the young couple you saw get in last night? Was there any one here to admit them?" "No; the gentleman had a key." "Ah, he had a key." The tone in which this was said recurred to me afterwards, but at the moment I was much more impressed by a peculiar sound I heard behind me, something between a gasp and a click in the throat, which came I knew from the scrub-woman, and which, odd and contradictory as it may appear, struck me as an expression of satisfaction, though what there was in my admission to give satisfaction to this poor creature I could not conjecture. Moving so as to get a glimpse of her face, I went on with the grim self-possession natural to my character: