“There need have been none. I made her use all precautions possible in an old-fashioned cottage; but however careful she might be, there would be always the risk of a well—close at hand like that one—getting tainted. I asked her if she ever used that water for anything but the garden, and she said no, the artesian well supplied every want. And now she talks about her kettle, and tells us coolly that she has been using that polluted water for the last three weeks—and poisoning a whole village.”
“Me poisoning the village! O Dr. Porter, how can you say such a cruel thing? Me, that wouldn’t hurt a fly if I knew it!”
“Perhaps not, Mrs. Wadman; but I’m afraid you’ve hurt a good many of your neighbours without knowing it.”
George Greswold stood in the pathway silent and deadly pale. He had been so happy for the last thirteen years—a sky without a cloud—and now in a moment the clouds were closing round him, and again all might be darkness, as it had been once before in his life. Calamity for which he felt himself unaccountable had come upon him before—swift as an arrow from the bow—and now again he stood helpless, smitten by the hand of Fate.
He thought of the little village child, with her guileless face, looking up at his window as she tripped by with her pitcher. His dole of milk had been fatal to the simple souls who had looked up to him as a Providence. He had taken such pains that all should be sweet and wholesome in his people’s cottages; he had spent money like water, and had lectured them and taught them; and lo! from his own luxurious home the evil had gone forth. Careless servants, hushing up a difficulty, loth to approach him with plain facts lest they should be considered troublesome, had wrought this evil, had spread disease and death in the land.
And his own and only child, the delight of his life, the apple of his eye—that tainted milk had been served at her table! Amidst all that grace of porcelain and flowers the poison had lurked, as at the cottagers’ board. What if she, too, should suffer?
He meant to take her away in a day or two—now—now when the cause of evil was at work no longer. The thought that it might be too late, that the germ of poison might lurk in the heart of that fair flower, filled him with despair.
Mrs. Wadman had run into her cottage, shedding indignant tears at Dr. Porter’s cruelty. She came out again, with a triumphant air, carrying a tumbler of water.
“Just look at it, sir,” she said; “look how bright and clear it is. There never was better water.”
“My good woman, in this case brightness and clearness mean corruption,” said the doctor. “If you’ll give me a pint of that water in a bottle I’ll take it home with me, and test it before I sleep to-night.”