“That she is being habitually drugged; gradually, slowly——”
“Merciful goodness!” interrupted Tamlyn, rising to his feet in excitement. “Do you mean slowly poisoned?”
“Hush!—I hear Janet,” cried Dr. Knox.
LADY JENKINS.
DOUBT.
I.
You might have heard a pin drop in the room. They were listening to the footsteps outside the door, but the footsteps did not make the hush and the nameless horror that pervaded it: the words spoken by Dr. Knox had done that. Old Tamlyn stood, a picture of dismay. For myself, sitting in the window-seat, my feet comfortably stretched out before me, and partially sheltered by the red curtains, I could only gaze at them both.
Janet’s footsteps died away. She appeared to have been crossing the hall to the tea-room. And they began to talk again.
“I do not say that Lady Jenkins is being poisoned; absolutely, deliberately poisoned,” said Dr. Knox, in the hushed tones to which his voice had dropped; “I do not yet go quite so far as that. But I do think that she is in some way being tampered with.”