"Lyddy," interposed Clyne, hastening to obliterate, if possible, the impression made on the two men by this foolish speech, "how you do go on. But you know your heart is better than your tongue." "It was, to put up so long with Mr. Vrain," said Lydia resentfully; "but I'm honest, if I'm nothing else. I guess I'm sorry that Vrain got stuck like a pig; but it wasn't my fault, and I've done my best to show respect by wearing black. But it is no good going on in this way, poppa, for I've no call to excuse myself to strangers. What I want to know is how I'm going to get the dollars." "You'll have to see the assurance company about that," said Link coldly; "my business with you, Mrs. Vrain, is about this murder." "I know nothing about it," retorted the widow. "I haven't set eyes on Mark for most a year." "Have you any idea who killed him?" "I guess not! How should I?" "You might know if he had enemies." "He," said Mrs. Vrain, with supreme contempt, "why, he hadn't backbone enough for folks to get riz at him! He was half baked!" "Crazy, that is," remarked Clyne; "always thought the world was against him, and folks wanted to get quit of him." "He said he had enemies," hinted Lucian. "You bet! He no doubt made out that all Europe was against him," said Clyne. "That was my son-in-law all over. Lyddy and he had a tiff, just like other married couples, and he clears out to lie low in an out-of-the-way shanty in Pimlico. I tell you, gentlemen, that Vrain had a chip out of his head. He fancied things, he did; but no one wanted to harm him that I know of." "Yet he died a violent death," said Denzil gravely. "That's a frozen fact, sir," cried Clyne, "and both Lyddy and I want to lynch the reptile as did it; but we neither of us know who laid him out." "I'm sure I don't," said Mrs. Vrain in a weeping voice. "Every one that I knew was civil to him; he had no one who wanted to kill him when he left Berwin Manor. Why he went away, or how he died, I can't say." "If you want to know how he died," explained Link, "I can tell you. He was stabbed." "So the journals said; with a bowie!" "No, not with a bowie," corrected Lucian, "but with some long, sharp instrument." "A dagger?" suggested Clyne. "I should be even more precise," said Denzil slowly. "I should say a stiletto--an Italian stiletto." "A stiletto!" gasped Mrs. Vrain, whose delicate pink colour had faded to a chalky white. "Oh!--oh! I--I--" and she fainted forthwith. CHAPTER VII THE ASSURANCE MONEY Mrs. Vrain's fainting fit was of no great duration, and she shortly recovered her senses, but not her sprightliness. Her excuse was that the long discussion of her husband's murder, and the too precise details related to her by Link before Denzil's arrival, had so wrought on her nerves as to occasion her temporary indisposition.