"Yes. After leaving the house I remembered my promise to Uncle Alexander to telephone you why we were detained, and while he was cranking the car, I jumped out and rang the bell. No one came and I waited and rang again. Looking around I saw that Uncle had driven off. I tried to overtake him and failed, so spent the night here in Paul's garage, the door being unlocked. Martha found me there in the morning and gave me some breakfast. She told me Paul had been murdered. It was a frightful shock!" Betty drew in her breath. "And I lost my head and ran away; and, to make bad matters worse, denied my visit here." She turned impulsively to Alan. "You will never know the suffering I have endured since Monday," she said, and her voice quivered with emotion. She read his expression, and a look of hope, of joy, flashed up in her face. "Am I forgiven?" Alan's arms were around her, his lips against hers. "You are loved," he whispered. "Does not that cover all?" and he led her from the room. Martha intercepted Miriam as she was on her way to her own room an hour later. "He's waiting downstairs," she said, pointing in the direction of the living room. "He?--Who?" "Mr. Trenholm." And Martha who, since Corbin's arrest for complicity in Paul's murder and for having narcotics concealed in his cache in the suicide's grave, had kept carefully hidden in the kitchen closet, stole softly to bed. Trenholm dropped the paper he was reading as Miriam paused in front of him, and sprang to his feet. "I hoped that you would come," he said. "Betty and Alan are in the sunparlor. In our talk they have cleared up the last threads of the mystery. It seems that Betty's telegram to Paul was telephoned out from Upper Marlboro and Alan wrote it down on a slip of paper and gave it to him. It was to secure that paper, Betty thinking it a regular telegraph blank, that they both tried to search this house and my bungalow." "Mr. Abbott had a paper in his hand when he told me that Miss Carter would be here," broke in Miriam. "Ah, then he must have carried it with him into the sitting room, and dropped it on the way there," replied Trenholm. "Pierre found it and took it to Mrs. Nash." A ghost of a smile hovered about Miriam's lips. "I cannot help but like Mrs. Nash," she confessed, then changed the subject swiftly. "What took Mr. Abbott into the sitting room when I went downstairs to admit Miss Carter and Doctor Nash?" Trenholm shook his head. "We will never know, but I imagine it was some sixth sense which warned him of danger to the diamond--the gem seemed to exert a remarkable influence over him. Poor Paul!" Trenholm sighed. "His extraordinary will-power triumphed over physical disability and gave him strength to reach the sitting room." Miriam's eyes filled with tears. "I cannot shake off a sense of responsibility for the tragedy--" "Nonsense!" Trenholm spoke with the vehemence characteristic of him. "Never think that."