"Don't speak so."
"Why not?" Bertha went up to him, and in a low voice, muttered:
"He has only a week to live; and see here—"
She drew a little vial from her pocket, and held it up to him.
"That is what convinces me that I am not mistaken."
Hector became livid, and could not stifle a cry of horror. He comprehended all now—he saw how it was that Bertha had been so easily subdued, why she had refrained from speaking of Laurence, her strange words, her calm confidence.
"Poison!" stammered he, confounded.
"Yes, poison."
"You have not used it?"
She fixed a hard, stern look upon him—the look which had subdued his will, against which he had struggled in vain—and in a calm voice, emphasizing each word, answered: