The next day Ralph Raymond's unfavorable symptoms had returned, and he was pronounced worse by the physician. Yet the change was not sufficiently marked to excite suspicion. It was supposed that his constitution had not vitality enough to rally against the steady approaches of the disease under which he was laboring.
Paul Morton read from the old medical book which he had picked up in Nassau Street, and which, as we know, had given him the first suggestion of the horrible crime which he had determined upon, the following words:
"The patient has been known to recover where but one dose of this poison has been administered, but should it have been given on two successive days, there is little or no chance that he will survive. Yet, so slow is its operation, that after the second time of administering, it is not impossible that he may survive several days. Cases have been known where the period has extended to a week, but of the final fatal result there can be no question."
"I must go through it again," muttered Paul Morton to himself. "It will not do to fail. While I am about it, I must make a sure thing of it."
He accordingly sought the bedside of the sick man on the next day, about the same time as before. He had watched till he saw the nurse go down to prepare the patient's dinner.
"How are you feeling, to-day?" he inquired, in apparent anxiety.
"Worse, my friend," said the sick man, feebly.
"But yesterday you said you were better, did you not?"
"Yes, I felt better then, but to-day I have a dull throbbing pain here," and he pointed to his breast.
"Did you not sleep well?"