While he was absent, Conscience turned to the man in the bath robe. A smile half of amusement and half of self-accusation tilted the corners of her lips.
"You see," she said thoughtfully, "I've just let myself think of him as elderly until, to me, he's become elderly. Yet to-night he's younger than either of us, isn't he?"
"To-night neither one of us is very young, dear," he replied with a wry smile.
In the pantry Eben Tollman poured three glasses of Madeira, and placed them on a tray carefully noting their relative positions. With fingers that trembled violently for a moment Eben grew as abruptly steady; he drew from his waistcoat pocket a small envelope such as druggists use, and into two of the glasses he divided its supply of small tablets.
"Ebbett said they were tasteless and readily soluble," he reminded himself. "And that the amount should be enough for a dog or a man."
Then he patted his breast pocket, where lay an envelope yellowed with age, bearing the legend "S. F. & C. W."
Of that he meant also to make use later.