“Did you try to find her the next morning?”
“No; I had heard that the steamer had not yet been sighted off Fire Island, so considered the effort unnecessary.”
“Why? What connection is there between this fact and an endeavor on your part to find your wife?”
“A very close one. She had come to New York to throw herself at my father’s feet. Now she could only do this at the steamer or in—”
“Why do you not proceed, Mr. Van Burnam?”
“I will. I do not know why I stopped—or in his own house.”
“In his own house? In the house in Gramercy Park, do you mean?”
“Yes, he has no other.”
“The house in which this dead girl was found?”
“Yes,”—impatiently.
“Did you think she might throw herself at his feet there?”
“She said she might; and as she is romantic, foolishly romantic, I thought her fully capable of doing so.”
“And so you did not seek her in the morning?”
“No, sir.”
“How about the afternoon?”
This was a close question; we saw that he was affected by it though he tried to carry it off bravely.
“I did not see her in the afternoon. I was in a restless frame of mind, and did not remain in the city.”
“Ah! indeed! and where did you go?”
“Unless necessary, I prefer not to say.”
“It is necessary.”
“I went to Coney Island.”
“Alone?”
“Yes.”
“Did you see anybody there you know?”
“No.”
“And when did you return?”
“At midnight.”
“When did you reach your rooms?”
“Later.”
“How much later?”
“Two or three hours.”
“And where were you during those hours?”
“I was walking the streets.”
The ease, the quietness with which he made these acknowledgments were remarkable. The jury to a man honored him with a prolonged stare, and the awe-struck crowd scarcely breathed during their utterance. At the last sentence a murmur broke out, at which he raised his head and with an air of surprise surveyed the people before him. Though he must have known what their astonishment meant, he neither quailed nor blanched, and while not in reality a handsome man, he certainly looked handsome at this moment.