For an instant Arthur stood staring at him, or rather at the space beyond him, as if trying to recall something too distant or too shadowy to assume any tangible form; then bursting into a laugh he said:
'Gretchen a child! That is the best joke I have heard. How should Gretchen have a child? She is little more than one herself, or was when I saw her last. No, Gretchen has no child. Why do you ask?'
'Because,' Frank replied, 'there was a little girl found in the Tramp House with this woman, a girl three or four years old, I judge. She is at the cottage now, where Harold carried her. He found the woman this morning. Will you see her now?'
Arthur answered 'no,' decidedly, and then Frank, who knew that he should never again know peace of mind if his brother did not see her, summoned all his courage and said:
'Arthur, you must. I have not told you all. This woman did come by train from New York.'
'Then why did not John see her?' interrupted Arthur.
'He was not there,' Frank replied. 'Forgive me, Arthur, I did not send him as you thought. It was so cold and stormy, and I had no faith in your presentiments, and so—so—'
'And so you lied to me, and I will never trust you again as long as I live, and if this had been Gretchen, I would kill you, where I stand!' Arthur hissed in a whisper, more terrible to hear than louder tones would have been, 'Yes, I will see this woman whose death lies at your door,' he continued, with a gesture that Frank should precede him.
Arthur was very calm, and collected, and stern, as he followed to the office where the body lay, covered now from view, but showing terribly distinct through the linen sheet folded over it.
'Remove the covering,' he said, in the tone of a master to his slave, and Frank obeyed.