f a stupid comic song. Spared by his deafness from this infliction of
vulgarity, our host filled a tumbler from the water in the claret jug,
and drank it.

As he set the tumbler down, we were startled by an accident in the next
room. The floor was suddenly shaken by the sound of a heavy fall. The
fall was followed by a groan which instantly brought me to my feet.

Although his infirmity made him unconscious of the groan, my friend felt
the vibration of the floor, and saw me start up from my chair. He looked
even more alarmed than I was, judging by the ghastly change that I saw in
his color; and he reached the door of the second room as soon as I did.
It is needless to say that I allowed him to enter first.

On the point of following him, I felt myself roughly pulled back. When I
turned round, and saw Cristel, I did really and truly believe that she
was mad. The furious impatience in her eyes, the frenzied strength of her
grasp on my arm, would have led most other men to form the same
conclusion.

"Come!" she cried. "No! not a word. There isn't a moment to lose." She
dragged me across the room to the table on which the claret jug stood.
She filled the tumbler from it, as _he_ had filled the tumbler. The
material of which the jug had been made was so solid (crystal, not glass
as I had supposed) that the filling of the two tumblers emptied it.
Cristel held the water out to me, gasping for breath, trembling as if she
saw some frightful reptile before her instead of myself.

"Drink it," she said, "if you value your life!"

I should of course have found it perfectly easy to obey her, strange as
her language was, if I had been in full possession of myself. Between
distress and alarm, my mind (I suppose) had lost its balance. With or
without a cause, I hesitated.

She crossed the room, and threw open the window which looked out on the
river.

"You shan't die alone," she said. "If you don't drink it, I'll throw
myself out!"

I drank from the tumbler to the last drop.

It was not water.

It had a taste which I can compare to no drink, and to no medicine, known
to me. I thought of the other strange taste peculiar to the tea. At last,
the tremendous truth forced itself on my mind. The man in whom my boyish
generosity had so faithfully believed had attempted my life.

Cristel took the tumbler from me. My poor angel clasped her free arm
round my neck, and pressed her lips, in an ecstasy of joy, on my cheek.
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