Her eyes were dark with anger. Twice her voice failed her. "You are impossible--intolerable--" she gasped, and turning ran toward Abbott's Lodge, in her blind haste passing Alan Mason without recognition. The latter stopped and stared after her, then catching sight of Guy Trenholm standing patiently by his mare, he whistled softly to himself. CHAPTER XI THE FOLDED NOTE THE undertaker's assistant looked in deep embarrassment at Betty Carter as he remained standing in front of the closed door of the room where lay Paul Abbott's body. "I'm sorry, Miss," he said. "Those are the sheriff's orders. No one is to go into the room now." "But why?" demanded Betty. "The funeral will be held in half an hour, and"--her voice quivered--"I want to--to see him before the casket is closed." Thompson moved uneasily from one foot to the other; Betty's distress disturbed him. "I'm very sorry," he mumbled. "Indeed I am--but it's not possible. Perhaps," his face brightened as the idea occurred to him, "perhaps you can see Mr. Trenholm and get his permission. Here he comes now," as a figure appeared at the far end of the corridor and came toward them. "Oh, pshaw! it's a woman." Somers, Mrs. Nash's maid, greeted Betty in a subdued voice. "Please, Miss Betty," she said. "Where will I find your aunt? The young woman who let me in declined to come upstairs." Betty glanced impatiently at the British maid. "Come this way," she turned as she spoke, then hesitated and addressed Thompson. "If you see Sheriff Trenholm tell him, please, I must go in this room." "Yes, Miss," and Thompson, considerably relieved by the maid's opportune arrival, resumed his slow pacing back and forth before the door. The sound of his voice and Betty's had carried inside the bedroom, but neither of the two men in it paid the slightest attention. The photographer put up his plates and closed his camera. "I've taken four views, Mr. Trenholm," he said. "Is that enough?" Trenholm nodded as he handed the man his flashlight apparatus. "Develop the plates and let me have the prints as quickly as possible," he directed. "Do you need any assistance?" as the photographer shouldered his camera, tripod, and utility box. "No, thanks." In spite of his haste to be gone, the man was careful to walk as far from the undertaker's couch with its silent figure as the limits of the room permitted. "I'll get these to you to-night. Where shall I send the photographs? Here, or to your home?" "My home," briefly. Trenholm held open the hall door for him to pass through, then spoke a few whispered words to Thompson. Ten minutes later the body of Paul Abbott had been carried downstairs and the casket closed, while arrangements for the funeral went steadily on. Trenholm listened impassively to Thompson's flurried delivery of Betty's message, the latter having forgotten it utterly in his astonishment at finding Trenholm had been in the bedroom at the time Betty wished to enter.