"There," she said. "That will answer the purpose. You had given him his dose and, putting the bottle back, it broke. I'll send Heathman off quick to Yelverton for another bottle, so it shall be here before the next dose is due. Then you won't be suspected."
He listened, and perceived how easily came the devious thought to her swift mind. It did not astonish him that she was skilled in the art to deceive.
"I've taken the chances—all of them," he said. "I've thought long about this. I needn't have told you to keep the secret, for it can't be kept. And I don't want it to be kept really. You can't hide it from the nurse. She'll know by the peace of poor Nat here how it is."
Priscilla looked again. Profound calm brooded over the busy man of Shaugh Prior. He was sinking out of life without one tremor.
"There's an awful side to it," the woman murmured.
"There was," he said. "The awfulness was to see Nature strangling him by inches. There's nought awful now, but the awfulness of all death. 'Tis meant to be an awful thing to the living—not to the dying."
For half an hour they sat silent. Then Priscilla lifted the clothes and put her hand to Nathan's feet.
"He's cold," she said.
"Cold or heat are all one to him now."
A little later Eliza Gollop returned. She came at the exact hour for administration of the medicine, and she sought the bottle before she took off her bonnet and cloak.