He pulled the cork from the phial and a cloying sweetish odor choked the air. Producing a grimy handkerchief, Mike poured a few drops upon it and applied it to the head and throat of the prostrate man.
"Not—too—much!" The smothered tones died away in a mumble, and placing the phial upon the floor beside the recumbent figure Mike gave one last sweeping glance about the room and slipped like an eel through the door, the flash of his lantern vanishing with him into the gloom.
Waiting only until the rasp of a softly opening window had assured her that the intruder was gone, Betty crept from her hiding place, her pulses leaping madly. She had made a desperate resolve and realized that she must put it into immediate execution, before the fumes of the anæsthetic had cleared from the momentarily dulled brain of the man lying before her.
Lighting her candle, she placed it upon the floor and crept on her hands and knees toward the phial, keeping well out of the possible upward range of Wolvert's vision.
The half-stupefied man stirred and muttered as her fingers closed about the phial, but she dared not hesitate. With a shaking hand she poured an ounce of the pungent liquid over the grimy handkerchief which lay beneath her hand, and creeping to Wolvert, suddenly dropped it like a cone down over his upturned face, holding the sides drawn tightly down.
His limbs twitched and his head moved feebly, but she did not relinquish her pressure until the muscular action ceased and the body lay limp and flaccid as that of the dead. Then, with a little sob of exultation, she flung herself upon the safe and seizing the blue envelope of which Mike had spoken, she tore it open.
A swift glance over the single folded sheet of letter paper and long narrow slip, much creased and yellowed with age, which formed its contents, and Betty clasped it convulsively to her breast. Her face was transfigured as she crept to her candle and with it crossed to the hearth.
A moment more and a clear flame sprang up, flaring fitfully in her trembling hands, then died and only a tiny heap of fluffy black flakes among the heavier wood ashes told of her desperate plan's consummation.
She turned to escape, but a glance at the motionless form halted her in mid-flight. Suppose she had killed him!
Betty's heart contracted and fearfully she approached him once more. The handkerchief had slipped from his face and its deathlike pallor seemed to confirm her misgiving.