"What is it?" he asked.
"It is from nightshade. I made it a week ago."
"Atropine. Symptoms? Can you give them?"
Claude looked at her closely as she made reply:
"I gave forty drops to a cat. It seemed to be quiet for about three-quarters of an hour. Then it tried to mew, but that was hard for it. The muscles of its throat were strained. After a little it began to bite at things in the cage. Its eyes were large, and the pupils full, as if it were in the dark. It drank all I would give it, but could not swallow easily. Then there came spasms. Finally it fell asleep, and died three hours after the dose."
The doctor nodded with satisfaction, but Deborah, glancing at de Mailly from beneath her lids, saw him look at her in strong displeasure. Instantly she flushed and her head straightened defiantly back.
"Monsieur, I do not think that you will enjoy our experiments here this morning. Will you be so obliging as to join my cousins, Virginia and Lucy, in some pleasanter occupation?"
There was a note of piqued command in the tone which Claude, who knew women well, would have disobeyed in any other case. Now, however, he made no reply, but rose in grave silence, bowed to her, and left the room.
"On my life, that was not a gallant thing," observed Carroll, placidly, when their sensitive guest had crossed the yard.
Deborah made no answer. She was more deeply hurt than she would have believed possible, and she did not choose that her voice should betray her. Crossing again to the cupboard, she took from its lowest shelf a deep-bowled horn spoon, with which she knelt before the cat's cage. In the mean time the doctor had been occupied in cutting the fungus into small cubes. These, together with the atropine, he took over to his pupil, who was now on the floor with the cat in her lap. She took the amanita quietly from her companion's hands, placed one piece in the creature's mouth, and manipulated its throat till it swallowed convulsively.