“I thank you heartily, my lady,” said Donal.
“I believe,” continued lady Arctura, gathering courage, “that my uncle is in the habit of taking some horrible drug for the sake of its effect on his brain. There are people who do so! What it is I don’t know, and I would rather not know. It is just as bad, surely, as taking too much wine! I have heard himself remark to Mr. Carmichael that opium was worse than wine, for it destroyed the moral sense more. Mind I don’t say it is opium he takes!”
“There are other things,” said Donal, “even worse!—But surely you do not mean he dared try anything of the sort on you!”
“I am sure he gave me something! For, once that I dined with him,—but I cannot describe the effect it had upon me! I think he wanted to see its operation on one who did not even know she had taken anything. The influence of such things is a pleasant one, they say, at first, but I would not go through such agonies as I had for the world!”
She ceased, evidently troubled by the harassing remembrance. Donal hastened to speak.
“It was because of such a suspicion, my lady, that this evening I would not even taste his wine. I am safe to-night, I trust, from the insanity—I can call it nothing else—that possessed me the last two nights.”
“Was it very dreadful?” asked lady Arctura.
“On the contrary, I had a sense of life and power such as I could never of myself have imagined!”
“Oh, Mr. Grant, do take care! Do not be tempted to take it again. I don’t know where it might not have led me if I had found it as pleasant as it was horrible; for I am sorely tried with painful thoughts, and feel sometimes as if I would do almost anything to get rid of them.”
“There must be a good way of getting rid of them! Think it of God’s mercy,” said Donal, “that you cannot get rid of them the other way.”