"It was you, then," I remarked, "who had him sent down to my place?"

She nodded.

"It was not easy," she said. "If they had known that you were going to have a doctor to visit him, it would have been impossible."

"He has been poisoned, I suppose?" I said calmly.

She shrugged her shoulders.

"He will die, and die very soon," she answered. "That is certain. But I think you will find no doctor here who will have anything to say about poison."

She moved a little nearer to me. The overhanging bunch of scarlet geraniums from her waistband brushed against my coat; the beady black eyes of the dog upon her shoulder were fixed steadily upon me.

"Has he said anything?" she murmured.

"Not yet," I answered.

"He will do so," she declared confidently, "and before long. That is why I am here. You must come to me the moment—the very moment you know! You understand that?"