"Nonsense, Iris, don't cry. You're not so far gone as you imagine."
"I—I am so wicked," she murmured.
"You wicked! You're an angel, Iris, and I am ready to swear to it."
"But you do not know, you do not know," she wailed. "I have no right to lecture you on your bad deeds, no right, no right."
She threw up her arms and clung sobbing to his neck.
"There, there, never mind," he said soothingly. "Take a sip of this and you will feel better."
Disengaging her arms from his neck he drew a goblet, half full of water, toward him, and emptied the contents of a small vial into it.
"Enough to kill a giant," he muttered low, as he placed the goblet to the lips of his wife.
One swallow and then she uttered a great cry and sank back quivering.
He sprang to his feet replacing with trembling hand the goblet on the stand at the head of the bed.