“But I'm thinking of giving up this place. It takes up too much of my time. You must be provided”—
“YOU are going away?” she said passionately.
“Yes.”
“Take me with you. I'll go anywhere!—to San Jose—-wherever you go. Don't turn me off as dad did, for I'll foller you as I never followed dad. I'll go with you—or I'll die!”
There was neither fear nor shame in her words; it was the outspoken instinct of the animal he had been rearing; he was convinced and appalled by it.
“I am returning to San Jose at once,” he said gravely. “You shall go with me—FOR THE PRESENT! Get yourself ready!”
He took her to San Jose, and temporarily to the house of a patient,—a widow lady,—while he tried, alone, to grapple with the problem that now confronted him. But that problem became more complicated at the end of the third day, by Liberty Jones falling suddenly and alarmingly ill. The symptoms were so grave that the doctor, in his anxiety, called in a brother physician in consultation. When the examination was over, the two men withdrew and stared at each other.
“Of course there is no doubt that the symptoms all point to slow arsenical poisoning,” said the consulting doctor.
“Yes,” said Ruysdael quickly, “yet it is utterly inexplicable, both as to motive and opportunity.”
“Humph!” said the other grimly, “young ladies take arsenic in minute doses to improve the complexion and promote tissue, forgetting that the effects are cumulative when they stop suddenly. Your young friend has 'sworn off' too quickly.”