"You saw him and delivered my message?" said Sally, anxiously.

"Oh, yes, my lady," returned the girl.

"Well," said Sally, expectantly, "what did he say?"

"He was raving angry, my lady," laughed Antoinette. "He swore as I told
him all; but at length he cooled down, seeing that his rage did not mend
matters. 'Take this to your mistress, my good girl,' he said, tearing a
leaf from his memorandum-book, and scribbling hastily, upon it. Here it
is, my lady."

As she spoke, she thrust a crumpled bit of paper into young Mrs.
Gardiner's trembling hand.

There was no date; the note contained but a few lines, and read as
follows:

"I shall be by the alder-bushes at midnight to-morrow
night, and shall expect you to be equally punctual. No
subterfuge, please. If for any reason you should fail
to keep your appointment, I shall call upon you
directly after breakfast the following morning, and
shall see you--_at any cost_!

"LAMONT."

She would not give herself any worry until she stood face to face with
Victor Lamont; then some sort of an excuse to put him off would be sure
to come to her.

There was another tap at the door. It was Andrew again, standing on the
threshold, shaking like an aspen leaf.

"Pardon me, my lady; Miss Margaret begs me to urge you to make all
possible haste."

"I am coming now," she answered; and, looking into her face, Andrew
marveled at the indifferent expression on it, and at the harshness of
her voice.

She followed him without another word. A frightened cry broke from her
lips as she hastily crossed the room, and bent over the couch on which
her husband lay.

He was marble white, and looked so strange, she thought he was certainly
dying.

"We have sent for all the doctors about here. They are expected every
moment," said Miss Margaret, touching her sister-in-law on the arm. "I
thought that in a consultation they would find some way to save him if
it lay in human power."

Sally looked up in affright into the calm white face beside her. She
tried to speak, but no sound fell from her cold, parched lips.

When the great doctors came, they would find that Jay Gardiner had not
taken the mild sleeping draught which poor Andrew believed he had
administered to him by mistake; but, instead, a most powerful drug, an
overdose of which meant death. Yes, they would find it out, and then----
She dared not think what would happen then.

"I have been looking c