a sudden, violent, rapid murder; could have
explained to himself a knife-stroke; but this slow death, given
drop by drop, horribly sweetened by tenderness, veiled under kisses,
appeared to him unspeakably hideous. He was mortally afraid of
Bertha, as of a reptile, and when she embraced him he shuddered
from head to foot.

She was so calm, so engaging, so natural; her voice had the same
soft and caressing tones, that he could not forget it. She plunged
her hair-pin into the fatal vial without ceasing her conversation,
and he did not surprise her in any shrinking or shuddering, nor
even a trembling of the eyelids. She must have been made of brass.
Yet he thought that she was not cautious enough; and that she put
herself in danger of discovery; and he told her of these fears,
and how she made him tremble every moment.

"Have confidence in me," she answered. "I want to succeed--I am
prudent."

"But you may be suspected."

"By whom?"

"Eh! How do I know? Everyone--the servants, the doctor."

"No danger. And suppose they did suspect?"

"They would make examinations, Bertha; they would make a minute
scrutiny."

She gave a smile of the most perfect security.

"They might examine and experiment as much as they pleased, they
would find nothing. Do you think I am such a fool as to use
arsenic?"

"For Heaven's sake, hush!"

"I have procured one of those poisons which are as yet unknown, and
which defy all analysis; one of which many doctors--and learned
ones, too--could not even tell the symptoms!"

"But where did you get this--this--"

He dared not say, "poison."

"Who gave you that?" resumed he.

"What matters it? I have taken care that he who gave it to me
should run the same danger as myself, and he knows it. There's
nothing to fear from that quarter. I've paid him enough to smother
all his regrets."

An objection came to his lips; he wanted to say, "It's too slow;"
but he had not the courage, though she read his thought in his eyes.

"It is slow, because that suits me," said she. "Before all, I
must know about the will--and that I am trying to find out."

She occupied herself constantly about this will, and during the
long hours that she passed at Sauvresy's bedside, she gradually,
with the greatest craft and delicacy, led her husband's mind in
the direction of his last testament, with such success that he
himself mentioned the subject which so absorbed Bertha.

He said that he did not comprehend wh