She stood, pointing to the door with a gesture that would have been melodramatic, had she not been so desperately in earnest.  The soft black sleeve fell away from her soft white arm, and her out-stretched hand was steady and unwavering as she stood silent, but quivering with suppressed rage.

“Eunice,” and going to her, Elliott took the cold white hand in his own.  “Eunice,” he said, and no more, but his eyes looked deeply into hers.

She gazed steadily for a moment, and then her face softened, and she turned aside, and sank wearily into a chair.

“Do as you like,” she said, in a low murmur.  “I’ll leave it to you, Mason.  Let Mr. Stone go ahead.”

“Yes, go ahead, Mr. Stone,” said Aunt Abby, eagerly.  “I’ll show you anywhere you want to go—­anything you want to see I’ll tell you all about it.”

“Why, do you know anything I haven’t been told, Miss Ames?  I thought we had pretty well sized up the situation.”

“Yes, but I can tell you something that nobody else will listen to, and I think you will.”

Eunice started up again.  “Aunt Abby,” she said, “if you begin that pack of fool nonsense about a vision, I’ll leave the room—­I vow I will!”

“Leave, then!” retorted Aunt Abby, whose patience was also under a strain.

But Stone said, “Wait, please, I want a few more matters mentioned, and then, Miss Ames, I will listen to your ’fool nonsense!’ First, what is this talk about money troubles between Mr. and Mrs, Embury?”

“That,” Eunice seemed interested, “is utter folly.  My husband objected to giving me a definite allowance, but he gave me twice the sum I would have asked for, and more, too, by letting me have charge accounts everywhere I chose.”

“Then you didn’t kill him for that reason?” and the dark eyes of the detective rested on Eunice kindly.

“No; I did not!” she said, curtly, and Stone returned,

“I believe you, Mrs, Embury; if you were the criminal, that was not the motive.  Next,” he went on, “what about this quarrel you and Mr. Embury had the night before his death?”

“That was because I had disobeyed his express orders,” Eunice said, frankly and bravely, “and I went to a bridge game at a house to which he had forbidden me to go.  I am sorry—­and I wish I could tell him so.”

Fleming Stone looked at her closely.  Was she sincere or was she merely a clever actress?

“A game for high stakes, I assume,” he said quietly.

“Very high.  Mr. Embury objected strongly to my playing there, but I went, hoping to win some money that I wanted.”

“That you wanted?  For some particular purpose?”

“No; only that I might have a few dollars in my purse, as other women do.  It all comes back to the same old quarrel, Mr. Stone.  You don’t know! can’t make you understand—­how humiliating, how galling it is for a woman to have no money of her own!  Nobody understands—­but I have been subjected to shame and embarrassment hundreds of times for the want of a bit of ready money!”