MIRIAM hung up the telephone receiver with a dissatisfied frown. For the third time her talk with the nurse in Doctor Roberts' office had been cut off, and her appeal to the local operator at Upper Marlboro for a clear line had brought no results. Moving away from the telephone table she stood hesitating in the center of the living room. Should she go back to her bedroom and lie down again, or go out for a walk? The latter alternative was the most inviting, although reason told her she should try to sleep. Sleep! She had tossed and turned on her pillow for two mortal hours and never closed her eyes. Always before her was the scene with Alexander Nash and Guy Trenholm. Later, her mind reverted to Betty Carter's denial of her presence at Abbott's Lodge. Twice she had been branded a liar--was she to sit down tamely under it? Miriam ran softly upstairs to her room, her mind made up. Putting on her coat and hat, she hurried down the hall again, and heard, as she passed Mrs. Nash's partly open bedroom door, the sound of a male voice addressing the sick woman. So Doctor Nash was with his wife! Miriam did not linger. As she started to close the front door behind her, the telephone bell rang loudly and she hastily entered the living room. Her unexpected return was a trifle disconcerting to Pierre, the chauffeur, who had started from the pantry to answer the telephone. At sight of the nurse standing with the instrument in her hands, he ducked behind the newel post and kept carefully out of sight, while listening intently to what was said. The call was from the operator at Upper Marlboro, and a second later Miriam was again speaking to Doctor Roberts' office nurse. This time there were no interruptions and Miriam's talk with the nurse was clear and, from her viewpoint, satisfactory. Ten minutes later Miriam was tramping across Abbott's estate, careless as to the direction she was taking, providing it led away from the house of mystery. Pierre slipped from behind the newel post in time to escape Martha as the latter went about her household work, a reluctant Anna in tow. The murder of Paul Abbott had created a sensation throughout the county, and, as the mystery surrounding the case deepened, the old hunting lodge gained a reputation for ghosts and horrors which kept visitors at a respectful distance, the morbidly curious only daring to venture near it in the daytime. Anna had consented to "help out" provided she did not have to go above the first floor and could be taken home by Corbin in the Abbott car before nine o'clock in the evening. Pierre's attentions, as he waited in the pantry, supplied a new thrill, which the country girl found a pleasant diversion from Martha's sullen irritability and Corbin's unwholesome leers.