“No, no, no; they never wronged or offended a human being, or had an enemy in the world.”
“Was there no one whose interest ran counter to those of the late baron and his House?”
“None on earth! Lord Leaton and his family were on the best possible terms with all their friends, acquaintances and dependants. They were widely, deeply, and sincerely beloved.”
“It comes back, then, to this; that no one would have any interest in the extinction of this whole family, except this half-Indian girl, who is their heiress, who it appears attended them in their illness, and prepared and administered the drinks of which they died, and in which the poison was detected—the poison, mark you, of the Faber Sancta Ignatii, a deadly product of the East, scarcely known in England, but familiar, no doubt, to this Asiatic girl. Mr. Montrose, the case is very clear,” said the lawyer, with an ominous shake of the head.
“Then you think,” said the young man, in a tone of anguish, “that if she is brought to trial——”
His voice was choked by his rising agony. He could utter no more.
“I think it as certain as any future event can be in this uncertain world that Eudora Leaton will be condemned and executed for the poisoning of her uncle’s family. Mr. Montrose! Good Heavens, sir, you are very ill! You—you have not partaken of any food or drink in this thrice-accursed house, but what you could rely upon?” exclaimed the lawyer, rising up in alarm, and going to the side of the young man, who had fallen back in his chair, his whole form convulsed, his pallid features writhing, and the drops of sweat, wrung from anguish that he vainly endeavored to subdue and control, beading upon his icy brow.
“Mr. Montrose—let me call——”
“No, no,” interrupted Malcolm, holding up his hand with an adjuring gesture, and struggling to regain his self-control, for manhood can ill brook to bend beneath the power of suffering.
“No! It is the blow!”