"The poison vial!" he ejaculates, and places the fatal letter in Mary's hand.
[CHAPTER VI.]
A LOOK INTO THE RED BOOK.
Madam Resimer was waiting in the little room up-stairs,—waiting and watching in that most secret chamber of her mansion,—her cheek resting on her hand, her eyes fixed upon the drawer from which the Red Book had been stolen. The day was bright without, but in the closed apartment, the Madam watched by the light of a candle, which was burning fast to the socket. The Madam had not slept. Her eyes were restless and feverish. Her cheeks, instead of their usual florid hues, were marked with alternate spots of white and red. Sitting in the arm-chair, (which her capacious form, clad in the chintz wrapper, filled to overflowing), the Madam beats the carpet nervously with her foot, and then her small black eyes assume a wicked, a vixenish look.
Daylight is bright upon the city and river; ten o'clock is near,—the hour at which Dermoyne intended to return,—and yet the Madam has no word of the bullies whom last night she set upon Dermoyne's track. Near ten o'clock, and no news of Dirk, Slung-Shot, or—the Red Book!
"Why don't they come!" exclaimed the Madam, for the fiftieth time, and she beat the carpet wickedly with her foot.
And from the shadows of the apartment, a voice, most lugubrious in its tone, uttered the solitary word,—"Why?"
"If they don't come, what shall we do?" the Madam's eyes grew wickeder, and she began to "crack" the joints of her fingers.
"What?" echoed the lugubrious voice.