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?"