“She has too great a fondness for the horrible and the fantastic not to have heard the story in its smallest details,” said Manning.
Mrs. Manning had taken the glass in her fine, thin hands. Evidently it and its mystic legend had a morbid fascination for her. A strange light gleamed in her wondrous eyes, and Laughton was startled again to see the extraordinary resemblance between her and the picture they had looked at on the day the goblet had been bought.
“When the poison was poured into it,” she said at last, with quick and restless glances at the two men, “the glass broke—then the tale was true?”
“It was a coincidence only, I’m afraid,” said her husband, who had rallied and regained strength under the unwonted excitement.
Just then the old-fashioned clock on the stairs struck five. Mrs. Manning started up, holding the goblet in her hand.
“It is time for your medicine,” she said.
“As you please,” answered her husband wearily, sinking back on his pillow. “My wife insists on giving me every drop of my potions with her own hands. I shall not trouble her much longer, and I doubt if it is any use for her to trouble me now.”
“I shall give you everything in this glass after this,” she said.
“In the Venetian glass?” asked Larry.