Anne Harding shook her stubborn, wise little head.
"No, Mrs. Chesney," she said.
"But where could it be? Mr. Chesney is never long enough anywhere but in his own room to have it hidden about the house."
"It isn't hidden about the house," said Anne. "It's hidden in his own room. I know it—as if I'd seen it through the wall, or floor, or wherever it is," she added firmly, seeing Sophy's look of doubt. But this doubt could not withstand such authoritative conviction. Sophy sighed wearily.
"I suppose you must be right," she said; "but it seems impossible."
She sat looking out of window at the waving mantle of rain which was again blown grey and wild over the swelling breasts of pasture land. Then she turned vehemently.
"Think of it!" she exclaimed. "The beauty of a field of poppies! The passionate loveliness of all those scarlet cups full of sunlight. And all the while their hearts are bitter with this evil—this horrible poison! Oh, why don't men wipe them from the earth!"
Anne looked at her with that wise kindliness. "You forget all the good that opium does," she said brusquely tender, after her fashion. "It's like so many other things—this fire on your hearth for instance. A good servant but a bad master."
Just after this conversation Sophy went to read aloud to Cecil at his request. This also was a new phase. He could never endure reading aloud in former days. Now he would lie, dozing off now and then, evidently soothed agreeably by the sound of her low, rich voice.
The weather had turned raw and chilly again with the renewed rain. Sophy shivered suddenly as she sat reading. Anne Harding, who was tidying a little medicine chest on a table near by, noticed this.