Nick agreed with her to this extent, and he was again thinking of her when, after more than a year, he strode up the driveway toward the Clayton residence--instinctively feeling himself on the threshold of another mystery. “There is a light in the front hall,” he remarked to Chick, when they came nearer the house. “There must be some one at home.” “Surely.” “Come this way. I think the library also is lighted. Instead of ringing, Chick, we’ll try to obtain a look from outside.” Nick had observed a brighter beam of light from one of the side windows. He saw it through the gloom under the porte-cochère. It streamed out over the side driveway beyond, giving a faint glow to the hazy mist that hung just above the cold earth, and lending a waxy luster to the dew-damp greensward of the near lawn. Nick led the way in that direction, passing under the porte-cochère and by the closed door of a dimly lighted side hall. He then could see more plainly the window from which the light was shed. It was a broad French window, obviously that of the house library, and opening upon a spacious side veranda. The interior blinds were partly raised, and one section of the window was open several inches. “For ventilation, perhaps,” Chick whispered, with a significant glance at his companion. Nick did not reply. He crept noiselessly up the veranda steps, and stole toward the partly open window. Through it, at first, he caught sight of only one corner of the large, beautifully furnished room. A telephone stand was overturned and lying on the floor. The instrument was lying near by, with the receiver fallen from its hook. Nick stepped nearer, and obtained a view of the entire room. The corpse of an elderly man was lying on the floor between the telephone stand and the library table. His face was upturned in the light from the electric chandelier. His linen and garments were saturated with blood. He had been shot through the heart. Seated in an armchair near the opposite wall was a solitary woman. Her fine figure was clad in a handsome evening gown of black lace, the somber hue of which accentuated her ghastly paleness and the dreadful expression then on her white face--a face attractive even then with its refined, matronly features, its lofty brow, and abundance of wavy, gray hair. She sat gazing vacantly at the corpse, obviously that of a murdered man, but not a sound came from her ashy-gray lips. One would have thought her dead, also, but for the feverish gleam and glitter of her eyes and the piteous wringing of her shapely, jewel-bedecked hands. It was as if, in a dazed and abnormal mental condition, she strove to cleanse them of the terrible stain, of the blood-red smears that covered them from her finger tips to her wrists. “Good heavens!” Chick gasped, at Nick’s elbow. “Here’s murder, Nick, hands down. That woman----” “Is Mrs. Julia Clayton,” said Nick, more calmly. “Be quiet.”