Mrs. Pelham had a dim feeling that the curtain was going to be lifted from something awful; the room seemed to go round. She raised her hand and passed it across her brows.
“I cannot see,” she cried. “The room is very hot.”
“I will open the window wider; take this chair. You will understand what I have told you in a moment.”
She did not speak, but, sinking back into the chair, closed her eyes. Tarbot flung the window wide open, poured out a glass of water and brought it to her.
“You will recover in a moment,” he said. “I knew it would be a terrible shock, and I felt that it was best for you to see me here and alone.”
“Tell me again,” she said after a moment. “There was in that medicine—what?”
“Hyocene.”
“And that is?”
“A deadly poison.”
“And the child took it?”