Taking a vial from his pocket, he dropped a portion of the contents into a wine-glass, and filled it with sherry wine.
“Mrs. Gerome, drink this for me. It will benefit you.”
She swallowed the mixture, and remained quiet for some seconds; then a singularly scornful smile curved her mouth as she said,—
“You drugged the wine. Well, so be it. Nepenthe or poison are alike welcome, if they bring me death, or even temporary oblivion.”
Katie came in and lighted the lamp, and Dr. Grey sat beside the sofa and watched the effect of his prescription.
Tired at length of the sober sea and dark gloomy grounds, Salome came back to the house and stood on the threshold of the parlor door, looking curiously at the quiet, silent group, and at the pictures on the walls.
She could see very distinctly the beautiful white face of the mistress pressed against the blue damask cushion, and clear in outline as she had once observed it on the background of ocean; and she noticed that the features were sharper and that the figure was thinner. From the silvery lamp-light the gray hair seemed to have caught a metallic lustre on the ripples that ebbed back from the blue-veined temples, and the woman looked like a marble snow-crowned image, draped in black.
With one elbow on his knee, and his cheek resting in his hand, Dr. Grey leaned forward, studying the features turned towards him, and watching her with almost breathless interest. He was not aware of Salome’s presence, and was unconscious of the strained, troubled gaze, that she fixed upon him.
The tender love that filled his heart looked out of his grave deep eyes, which never wandered from the face so dear to him, and moved his lips in an inaudible prayer for the peace and welfare of the lonely waif whom Providence or fate had brought into his path, to evoke all the tenderness latent in his sturdy, manly nature.