It was half empty.
Some of it had been used.
How had it been used? Of that she had little doubt. The dangerous, sleep-bringing laudanum had been put into the medicine for the child. It was to make room for that that Jonas had opened the window and poured forth some of the contents.
A drop still hung on the top of the phial.
She shut and relocked the cupboard, descended, with dismay, despair in her heart, and taking the bottle from the table, dashed it into the fire upon the hearth. Then she caught her babe to her, and through floods of tears, sobbed: "There is none love thee but I—but I—but only I! O, my babe, my babe! My sceptre, crown, and all!"
In the blinding rain of tears, in the tumult of passion that obscured her eyes, that confused her brain, Mehetabel saw, heard nothing. She had but one sense—that of feeling, that thrilled through one fibre only attached to the helpless, suffering morsel in her arms—the infant she held to her breast, and which she would have liked to bury in her heart away from all danger, concealed from the malevolent eye, and the murderous hand.
All the mother's nature in her was roused and flared into madness. She alone loved this little creature, she alone stood between it and destruction. She would fight for it, defend it to her last breath, with every weapon wherewith she was endowed by nature.
After the first paroxysm of passion was passed, and a lull of exhaustion ensued, she looked up, and saw Bideabout enter, and as he entered he cast a furtive glance at the table, then at the child.
In a moment she resolved on the course she should adopt.
"Have you given the babe the draught?" he asked, with averted face.