It was the first time Mrs. Nash had met Guy Trenholm face to face, though each had had glimpses of the other during Mrs. Nash's occasional visits to Abbott's Lodge in the past. Under pretense of much languor, she was slow in offering him her hand and equally slow in releasing his. Trenholm's pressure on her icy fingers forced her rings into her flesh, but aside from a slight, very slight, intake of her breath, she gave no sign of how much he hurt her. "Please take that chair," she said, as Somers, obedient to previous instructions, pushed forward the chair Miriam had occupied the night before and in which she had found the thirteenth letter. "You will fill it nicely, Mr. Trenholm; it is made for such big frames as you and my husband. I feel," she added as he kept a discreet silence, waiting for her to open the interview, "that you and I should be old acquaintances; I have heard so many nice things about you from both Paul and his father." "Thank you, Mrs. Nash!" Trenholm sat back and eyed her gravely. Her rouge was cleverly applied and her hair was becomingly dressed. But to his critical mind there was something unnatural in the high notes of her voice, in the constant tremble of her hand, which, strive as she did, she could not control. "I have frequently hoped to meet you, and frankly"--with a disarming smile--"particularly after your experiences last night." "You come directly to the point," she remarked. "I can only tell you that, after Miss Ward left me, I closed my eyes--for a few minutes only--and opened them to find the room in darkness, to feel some one creeping to my bedside, the touch of the beard on my hand--" The shrug of her shoulders was eloquent. "Have you, Sheriff Trenholm, discovered the identity of the intruder?" He shook his head. "I must admit failure," he said. "Give me a little more time." She frowned, then smiled, and Trenholm decided that a fiery temper was kept under iron control. "My husband has gone to employ a celebrated detective agency to solve the mystery," she stated. "I thought that you should know and so sent for you." "Thank you," simply, and settling himself more comfortably in the big chair Trenholm awaited her next remark. "You are not exactly loquacious," she commented dryly. "Have you been told the terms of Paul Abbott's will?" "Yes. Your niece will inherit a very handsome fortune." "Provided she remains single the rest of her natural life." Mrs. Nash's laugh smote unpleasantly on his ear. "Betty is so very young--not yet out of her twenties. Does wealth compensate, Mr. Trenholm, for a lonely old age?" "To some natures it does." Trenholm's voice was softly modulated to suit a sick room, and Mrs. Nash had to listen attentively to catch every word he said. "It seems a pity that Paul and Miss Carter were not married before his death."