"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.