"Do you recognize this cloak?" he asked.
A sudden pallor overspread her face. She could not speak. She was holding the cloak up before her eyes, gazing on it in mute astonishment.
"Do you recognize it, madam?" repeated Sharpman.
"Why, sir!" she said, at last, "it is—it was Ralph's. He wore it the night of the disaster." She was caressing the faded ribbons with her hand; the color was returning to her face.
"And this, Mrs. Burnham, do you recognize this?" inquired the lawyer, advancing with the cap.
"It was Ralph's!" she exclaimed, holding out her hands eagerly to grasp it. "It was his cap. May I have it, sir? May I have them both? I have nothing, you know, that he wore that night."
She was bending forward, looking eagerly at Sharpman, with flushed face and eyes swimming in tears.
"Perhaps so, madam," he said, "perhaps; they go with the boy. If we succeed in restoring your son to you, we shall give you these things also."
"What else have you that he wore?" she asked, impatiently. "Oh! did you find the locket, a little gold locket? He wore it with a chain round his neck; it had his—his father's portrait in it."
Without a word, Sharpman placed the locket in her hands. Her fingers trembled so that she could hardly open it. Then the gold covers parted and revealed to her the pictured face of her dead husband. The eyes looked up at her kindly, gently, lovingly, as they had always looked on her in life. After a moment her lips trembled, her eyes filled with tears, she drew the veil across her face, and her frame grew tremulous with deep emotion.