The woman shrunk a little.
"I'm almost afraid, Mr. Ingelow. I don't like drugging. They're old and feeble; I daren't do it."
"You must do it," Hugh Ingelow said, sternly. "I tell you there is no danger. Do you take me for a murderer?"
"No; but there might be a mistake."
"There is none. The powder is an opiate; it will harm no one. They will go to sleep a little earlier, and sleep a little longer and a little sounder than usual—that is all."
Mrs. Sharpe took the paper, but with evident reluctance.
"I tell you it is all right," reiterated Hugh Ingelow; "no one is to be murdered but the dogs. Doctor Oleander will have no scruple about drugging Miss Dane on Friday night, you will see. The choice lies between her and them. Are you going to fail me at the last, Sarah?" sternly.
"No," said the woman. She dropped the little package in her pocket, and looked him firmly in the face. "I'll do it, Mr. Ingelow. And then?"
"And then the dogs will be dead, and the people asleep, before ten o'clock. At ten I'll be at the gate; a vehicle will be waiting down below in the clump of cedars. You will open the house door and the garden gate, and let me in. Before another day we'll be in the city."
"So be it. And now," said Mrs. Sharpe, drawing her shawl around her, "I must go. I came to walk off a bad headache; I find it is gone, so I had better return."