"I suppose you think that I hate your wife. Well, I don't! I'm very fond of her."
"It's utter nonsense for us to suspect them of—Pray don't be so upset, Drusilla. It's all right----"
"If you think I am worrying over your wife's harmless affair with my husband, you are very much mistaken."
Deppingham was silent for a long time.
"I don't sleep at all these night," he said at last, miserably. She could not feel sorry for him. She could only feel for herself and her sleepless nights. "Drusilla, do—do you think they want to get rid of us? We're the obstacles, you know. We can't help it, but we are. Somebody put that pill in my tea to-day. It must have been a servant. It couldn't have been—er----"
"My husband, sir?"
"No; my wife. You know, Drusilla, she's not that sort. She has a horror of death and—" he stopped and wiped his brow pathetically.
"If the servants are trying to poison any of us, Lord Deppingham, it is reasonable to suspect that your wife and my husband are the ones they want to dispose of, not you and me. I don't believe it was poison you found in your tea. But if it was, it was intended for one of the heirs."
"Well, there's some consolation in that," said Deppy, smiling for the first time. "It's annoying, however, to go about feeling all the time that one is likely to pass away because some stupid ass of an assassin makes a blunder in giving—"
The sharp rattle of firearms in the distance brought a sudden stop to his lugubrious reflections. Five, a dozen—a score of shots were heard. The blood turned cold in the veins of every one in the garden; faces blanched suddenly and all voices were hushed; a form of paralysis seized and held them for a full minute.