airs."

"Who wrote it, doctor, and what does it say?"

"Questions naturally asked, Miss Jillgall--and not easily answered.
Where is Eunice? Her quick wit might help us."

She had gone out to buy some fruit and flowers for Philip.

The doctor accepted his disappointment resignedly. "Let us try what
we can do without her," he said. "That young man's master has been in
consultation (you may remember why) with his lawyer, and Helena may
be threatened by an investigation before the magistrates. If this wild
guess of mine turns out to have hit the mark, the poisoner upstairs has
got a warning."

I asked if the chemist had written the note. Foolish enough of me when
I came to think of it. The chemist would scarcely act a friendly part
toward Helena, when she was answerable for the awkward position in which
he had placed himself. Perhaps the young man who had left the warning
was also the writer of the warning. The doctor reminded me that he
was all but a stranger to Helena. "We are not usually interested," he
remarked, "in a person whom we only know by sight."

"Remember that he is a young man," I ventured to say. This was a strong
hint, but the doctor failed to see it. He had evidently forgotten his
own youth. I made another attempt.

"And vile as Helena is," I continued, "we cannot deny that this disgrace
to her sex is a handsome young lady."

He saw it at last. "Woman's wit!" he cried. "You have hit it, Miss
Jillgall. The young fool is smitten with her, and has given her a chance
of making her escape."

"Do you think she will take the chance?"

"For all our sakes, I pray God she may! But I don't feel sure about it."

"Why?"

"Recollect what you and Eunice have done. You have shown your suspicion
of her without an attempt to conceal it. If you had put her in prison
you could not have more completely defeated her infernal design. Do you
think she is a likely person to submit to that, without an effort to be
even with you?"

Just as he said those terrifying words, Maria came back to us. He asked
at once what had kept her so long upstairs.

The girl had evidently something to say, which had inflated her (if I
may use such an expression) with a sense of her own importance.

"Please to let me tell it, sir," she answered, "in my own way. Miss
Helena turned as pale as ashes when she opened the letter, and then she
took a turn in the room, and then she looked at me with a smile--well,
miss, I can only say that I f