affair. It is my wish that the matter should be allowed to rest. Nothing could be more repugnant to my feelings, or to my brother's, were he alive, poor fellow, than all this newspaper notoriety. I wish to see the body buried, and the mystery with it. I have no desire for any solution."

"But, despite your wishes, the affair will be, must be, investigated. Now, to discuss your imaginary proposition, I will say that it is so improbable that no one would believe it."

"Why not, pray?"

"First, because it was an unnatural procedure upon such an inadequate motive. A man might [Pg 28] kill his brother, but he would hardly desecrate his brother's coffin merely to prevent a certain form of disposing of the dead."

[Pg 28]

"That is mere presumption. You cannot dogmatically state what may actuate a man."

"But in this case the means was inadequate to the end."

"How so?"

"If the combined wishes of yourself and the widow could not sway your brother Amos, who had taken charge of the funeral, how could you hope when the body should be removed from the river, that he would be more easily brought around to your wishes?"

"The effort to cremate the body having failed once, he would not resist my wishes in the second burial."

"That is doubtful. I should think he would be so incensed by your act, that he would be more than ever determined that you should have no say in the matter. But supposing that you believed otherwise, and that you wished to carry out this extraordinary scheme, you had no opportunity to do so."

"Why not?"

"I suppose, of course, that your brother sat up with the corpse through the night before the funeral."

"Exactly. You suppose a good deal more than you know. My brother did not sit up with the corpse. As the coffin had been closed, there was no need to follow that obsolete custom. My brother [Pg 29] retired before ten o'clock. I myself remained up some hours longer."

[Pg 29]

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