ad old Clutch to attend to.

Mehetabel remained alone, and looked at the medicine bottle; then
she laid the infant on her knees and studied the little face, so
blanched with dark rings round the eyes. The tiny hands were drawn
up on the breast and clasped; she unfolded and kissed them.

Then she looked again at the phial.

There was something strange about it. The contents did not appear
to have been well mixed, the upper portion of the fluid was dark,
the lower portion white. How came this about? Jonas had ridden old
Clutch home, and the movements of the horse were not smooth. The
bottle in the pocket of Bideabout must have undergone such shaking
as would have made the fluid contents homogeneous and of one hue.
She held the bottle between herself and the light. There was no
doubt about it, either the liquid separated rapidly, or had never
been mixed.

She withdrew the cork and applied the mouth of the phial to her
nose.

The scent of the medicine was familiar. It was peculiar. When had
she smelt that odor before. Then she started. She remembered the
little bottle containing laudanum, with the death's head on it, in
the closet upstairs.

Hastily, her heart beating with apprehension, she laid her babe in
the cradle, and taking the light, mounted to the upper chamber. She
possessed the key of the cabinet in the wall. She had retained it
because afraid to give it up, and Jonas had manufactured for
himself a fresh key.

Now she unlocked the closet, and at once discovered the laudanum
bottle.

It was half empty.

Some of it had been used.

How had it been used? Of that she had little doubt. The dangerous,
sleep-bringing laudanum had been put into the medicine for the
child. It was to make room for that that Jonas had opened the
window and poured forth some of the contents.

A drop still hung on the top of the phial.

She shut and relocked the cupboard, descended, with dismay, despair
in her heart, and taking the bottle from the table, dashed it into
the fire upon the hearth. Then she caught her babe to her, and
through floods of tears, sobbed: "There is none love thee but
I--but I--but only I! O, my babe, my babe! My sceptre, crown, and
all!"

In the blinding rain of tears, in the tumult of passion that
obscured her eyes, that confused her brain, Mehetabel saw, heard
nothing. She had but one sense--that of feeling, that thrilled
through one fibre only attached to the helpless, suffering morsel
in her arm