er horny fingers.

"You are young, Signora. When you are old, you will understand many
things, when evils have pounded your heart in a mortar. Oil is sweet,
vinegar is sour; with both one makes salad. This is our life. Rest
yourself, Signora, for you walked well this morning. I go."

Gloria felt the pressure of the rough fingers on hers, after Nanna had
left her. The acrid odour of peeled vegetables clung to her own hand,
and she rose and washed it carefully, though she was scarcely conscious
of what she was doing. Suddenly she dropped the towel and went back to
the box. It had crossed her mind that the single book she had opened
might have been borrowed from her father and that she might find another
name in the others--that Nanna might have been mistaken in thinking that
she recognized the English name--that it might all be a mistake, after
all.

With violent hands she dragged out the moth-eaten clothes and threw them
behind her upon the floor, and seized the books, opening them
desperately one after the other. In each there was the name, 'Angus
Dalrymple,' in her father's firm young handwriting of twenty years ago.
She threw them down and lifted out the oak box. A little brass plate was
let into the lid, and bore the initials, 'A. D.' There was no doubt
left. The books all bore dates prior to 1844, the year in which, as she
knew, her father had been married. It was impossible to hesitate, for
the case was terribly clear.

She rose to her feet and carried the box to the window and set it upon a
chair, sitting down upon another before it. It was not locked. She
raised the lid, and saw that it was a medicine chest. There was a
drawer, or little tray, on the top, full of small boxes and very minute
vials, lying on their sides. Lifting this out, she saw a number of
little stoppered bottles set in holes made in a thin piece of board for
a frame. One was missing, and there were eleven left. She counted them
mechanically, not knowing why she did so. Then she took them out and
looked at the labels. The first she touched contained spirits of
camphor. It chanced to be the only one of which the contents were
harmless. The others were strong tinctures and acids, vegetable poisons,
belladonna, aconite, and the like, sulphuric acid, nitric acid,
hydrochloric acid, and others.

Gloria looked at them curiously and set them back, one by one, put in
the little tray and closed the lid. Then she sat still a long time and
gazed out