"It's impossible!" she insisted piteously. "I tell you it's impossible. I brought the coffee myself from the kitchen. I took it from the pot there—the same pot we had all had ours from. It was never out of my sight—or, that is—I mean——"
She halted there and Ste. Marie saw her eyes turn slowly towards the door, and he saw a crimson flush come up over her cheeks and die away, leaving her white again. He drew a little breath of relief and gladness, for he was sure of her now. She had had no part in it.
"It is nothing, mademoiselle," said he cheerfully. "Think no more of it. It is nothing."
"Nothing?" she cried in a loud voice. "Do you call poison nothing?" She began to shiver again very violently.
"You would have drunk it!" she said, staring at him in a white agony. "But for a miracle you would have drunk it—and died!" Abruptly she came beside the bed and threw herself upon her knees there. In her excitement and horror she seemed to have forgotten what they two were to each other. She caught him by the shoulders with her two hands and the girl's violent trembling shook them both.
"Will you believe," she cried, "that I had nothing to do with this? Will you believe me? You must believe me!"
There was no acting in that moment. She was wrung with a frank anguish and utter horror, and between her words there were hard and terrible sobs.
"I believe you, mademoiselle," said the man gently. "I believe you. Pray think no more about it!" He smiled up into the girl's beautiful face, though within him he was still cold and ashiver, as even the bravest men might well be at such an escape, and after a moment she turned away again. With unsteady hands she put the new-made bowl of coffee and the brioches and other things together upon the tray, and started to carry it across the room to the bed, but halfway she turned back again and set the tray down. She looked about and found an empty glass, and she poured a little of the coffee into it. Ste. Marie, who was watching her, gave a sudden cry—
"No! no! mademoiselle, I beg you. You must not!" But the girl shook her head at him gravely over the glass.
"There is no danger," she said, "but I must be sure." She drank what was in the glass, and afterwards went across to one of the windows and stood there with her back to the room for a little time.