CHAPTER XIV.
AN ATTEMPT AT MURDER.
What Percy had discovered on the supper-table, standing near to his own plate, was only a wine bottle. But it was a very peculiar bottle—that is, in his eyes. It might not have been so in the eyes of another.
Two circumstances in connection with it came to his mind; first, he was very sure there had been no such bottle as that in the cottage when he had left it that morning. In the very nature of the home arrangement it would have been next to impossible for a bottle of wine to stand in the dwelling without his knowledge, and he had no knowledge of that.
The next circumstance was startling. The bottle was of an entirely new pattern, the glass of a color such as he had never seen in a bottle but once before, and that once before had been in the cabin of the Staghound, during his late conference with Donald Rodney!
It had been exactly such a bottle that the old man had produced when he had offered him the finest old wine that was ever tasted. How came the bottle here? That it had been brought during the day he was confident.
As his mother had turned away to the buffet, so he now turned away to a window, and did not come back until he had put away the last outward sign of his misgivings.
“I don’t suppose the old earl loves that grandson of his over and above much, does he?” Margery remarked, looking at her son keenly after they had taken their seats and she had lifted the pot to pour out the tea.
“I can not presume to judge of that matter, mother,” Percy replied, in an easy, natural tone. “I know that the young man tries his grandfather’s patience somewhat; and I have no doubt that the old man wishes he were different. However, I know but little about him.”
“I suppose you have spoken with the young lord?”
“Yes. I have spoken with him, and that is about all.”