"Don't be so silly! It's not poison! It wouldn't suit my book to get rid of you, my love!" he scornfully exclaimed, reassured by her being conscious, and speaking. Then he set down her glass on the table, and taking up his, drank off its contents at a gulp. "There! You see it is not! However, I'll get you some water, if you like."
He crossed to the door, opened it, and went downstairs. She sat up, listening to his footsteps. A new idea had flashed upon her. She glanced first at the desk, hungrily, wildly, then at the cupboard. Then she rose, stepped cautiously, supporting herself, for she was giddy, by the chairs, and peered eagerly in at the half-open cupboard door, where the skeleton hung. She had seen shelves of bottles. Scanning these, she selected one marked "Morphia--Poison"--shook it--it was half-full--and returned to the table. Taking out the stopper, she poured the contents into the bottle of brandy, swift as a flash returned the morphia-bottle to its place on the shelf, then, going back to her chair, leant against the wall in the exhausted attitude she had been in when he left her.
"He drinks," she gloomily told herself. "He will take more. I must make him fall asleep. Then I will secure those letters."
CHAPTER XVI
She closed her eyes and listened to the patter of his footsteps, running up the oilcloth-covered stairs. He came in evidently breathless.
"Don't say I didn't make haste," he said, pantingly, as he poured some water from the glass jug he was carrying into his own tumbler, which was empty. "You won't mind your husband's glass, of course." He handed it to her.
"No," said Joan, who felt sternly apathetic--with but one dominant feeling--to circumvent this fiendish being, and possess the letters and certificate with which he threatened her. And she drank the water off at a draught, even as he had drunk the brandy. The glass must be empty to hold the drugged spirit.
"Great Scott!" he laughed, contemptuously, as he took the empty tumbler and looked curiously at it. "To see any one gulp down water like that gives me the shivers! Pah, I must positively warm my nerves after seeing you do it!"
She watched him, fascinated, as he poured out another half-tumbler of the now drugged brandy, and dashed a few teaspoonfuls of water into it.
"That is how I take my liquor--like a man!" he said, after a long drink, setting the nearly emptied glass down on the table. "Ah! I feel better of my temper already. You must not pay attention to what I said just now, old girl! I didn't mean it, really I didn't! Some one said something to me about a Lord Vansittart or somebody having boasted he would have you, or die. You doubtless know of the fellow! But you must be accustomed to that sort of thing by this time, eh? Your uncle has a big fortune to leave." He smiled sardonically.