“Promise me,” she began, sinking her voice so that he had to bend nearer to catch what she said. “Promise me not to admit to Sheriff Trenholm that you and I were at Abbott’s Lodge on Monday night.”
Nash straightened up with a jerk. “Betty!”
“Please!” Betty’s soft voice was pathos itself. There was silence in the limousine and Pierre dropped his eyes from the vision mirror in which were plainly outlined the likenesses of his two passengers in time to turn into the driveway to Abbott’s Lodge and stop under the porte cochère.
Nash sighed deeply. “Does your aunt know?”
Betty shook her head. “No one must know,” she protested vehemently. “No one.” She looked at him and the wistful, pleading appeal in her lovely eyes stirred him out of himself.
His low but fervid “Betty” reached not only her ears, but Alan Mason’s, who stood by the door of the car, held open by the attentive Pierre.
Alan broke the pause. “I’m glad you’ve come, Nash,” he said. “Your wife is worse.”
CHAPTER IX
THE DENIAL
Doctor Roberts removed his fingers from Mrs. Nash’s wrist, after taking her pulse, and then bowed gravely to her husband.
“Your wife has rallied and we can safely leave her with the nurse,” he said. “Come, Nash, you must be very weary after your anxious night,” and laying his hand persuasively on his companion’s shoulder he gently pushed him toward the hall door, then turned back to speak to Miriam. “I will be downstairs in the living room if you need me.”