in my turn, handed the
tumbler to _him_.--Is there any mistake so far?'

"The quick throbbing of my heart almost choked me. I could just shake my
head--I could do no more.

"'I saw Allan raise the tumbler to his lips.--Did _you_ see it? I saw
his face turn white in an instant.--Did _you_? I saw the glass fall from
his hand on the floor. I saw him stagger, and caught him before he fell.
Are these things true? For God's sake, search your memory, and tell
me--are these things true?'

"The throbbing at my heart seemed, for one breathless instant, to stop.
The next moment something fiery, something maddening, flew through me.
I started to my feet, with my temper in a flame, reckless of all
consequences, desperate enough to say anything.

"'Your questions are an insult! Your looks are an insult!' I burst out.
'_Do you think I tried to poison him_?'

"The words rushed out of my lips in spite of me. They were the last
words under heaven that any woman, in such a situation as mine, ought to
have spoken. And yet I spoke them!

"He rose in alarm and gave me my smelling-bottle. 'Hush! hush!' he said.
'You, too, are overwrought--you, too, are overexcited by all that has
happened to-night. You are talking wildly and shockingly. Good God!
how can you have so utterly misunderstood me? Compose yourself--pray,
compose yourself.'

"He might as well have told a wild animal to compose herself. Having
been mad enough to say the words, I was mad enough next to return to the
subject of the lemonade, in spite of his entreaties to me to be silent.

"'I told you what I had put in the glass, the moment Mr. Armadale
fainted,' I went on; insisting furiously on defending myself, when no
attack was made on me. 'I told you I had taken the flask of brandy which
you kept at your bedside, and mixed some of it with the lemonade. How
could I know that he had a nervous horror of the smell and taste of
brandy? Didn't he say to me himself, when he came to his senses, It's
my fault; I ought to have warned you to put no brandy in it? Didn't he
remind you afterward of the time when you and he were in the Isle of
Man together, and when the doctor there innocently made the same mistake
with him that I made to-night?'"

["I laid a great stress on my innocence--and with some reason too.
Whatever else I may be, I pride myself on not being a hypocrite. I _was_
innocent--so far as the brandy was concerned. I had put it into the
lemonade, in pure ignorance of