‘It is a German Bible,’ he continued, and then Arthur took it quickly from him as if it had been a long-lost friend, turning the worn pages rapidly, but failing to discover the marked passage and the message for some one.

The lock of baby hair and the faded flowers caught his attention, and his breath came hard and pantingly, as for a moment he held the little golden tress which seemed almost to twine itself lovingly around his fingers.

’That must be her child’s hair.  You know I told you there was a little girl found with her.  Would you like to see her?’ Frank said.

‘No, no!’ Arthur answered, hastily.  ’Let her stay where she is, I don’t like children as a rule.  You know I can’t abide the noise yours sometimes make.’

He was leaving the room with the Bible in his hand, but Frank could not suffer that, and he said: 

’I suppose all these things must stay here till the coroner sees them; so I will put the Bible where I found it.

Arthur gave it up readily enough, and then, as he reached the door, looked back, and said: 

’If forty coroners and undertakers come on this business, don’t bother me any more.  My head buzzes like a bee-hive.  See that everything is done decently for the poor woman, and don’t let the town bury her.  Do it yourself, and send the bill to me.  There is room enough on the Tracy lot; put her in a corner.’

‘Yes,’ Frank answered, standing in the open door and watching him as he went slowly down the long hall and until he heard him going up stairs.

Then locking the door, which shut him in with the dead, he took the photograph from his pocket and examined it minutely, feeling no shadow of doubt in his heart that it was Gretchen—­if the picture in the window was like her.  It was the same face, the same sweet mouth and sunny blue eyes, with curls of reddish-golden hair shading the low brow.  The dress was different and more in accordance with that of a girl who belonged to the middle class, but this counted for nothing, and Frank felt himself a thief, and a liar, and a murderer as he stood looking at the lovely face; and debating what he should do.

Turning it over he saw on the back a word traced in English letters, in a very uncertain scrawling hand, as if it were the writer’s first attempt at English.  Spelling it letter by letter he made out what he called ‘Wiesbaden,’ and knew it was some German town.  Did Gretchen live there, he wondered, and how could he find out, and what should he do?  He had not yet seen the child at the cottage, but from some things Harold said, he knew she was more like this picture than like the dead woman found with her, and in his heart he felt almost sure who she was, and that his course of duty was plain.  He ought to show Arthur the photograph, and tell him his suspicions, and take every possible step to ascertain who the woman was and where she came from.