Mrs. Gallilee raised herself on the sofa. “Are you insulting me, sir,” she asked, “by making this serious emergency the subject of a joke?”
“I never was more in earnest, madam, in my life.”
“You think—you really think—that she is capable of trying to poison me?”
“Most assuredly I do.”
Mrs. Gallilee sank back on the pillow. Mr. Le Frank stated his reasons; checking them off, one by one, on his fingers.
“Who is she?” he began. “She is an Italian woman of the lower orders. The virtues of the people among whom she had been born and bred, are not generally considered to include respect for the sanctity of human life. What do we know already that she has done? She has alarmed the priest, who keeps her conscience, and knows her well; and she has attacked you with such murderous ferocity that it is a wonder you have escaped with your life. What sort of message have you sent to her, after this experience of her temper? You have told the tigress that you have the power to separate her from her cub, and that you mean to use it. On those plain facts, as they stare us in the face, which is the soundest conclusion? To believe that she really submits—or to believe that she is only gaining time, and is capable (if she sees no other alternative) of trying to poison you?”
“What would you advise me to do?” In those words Mrs. Gallilee—never before reduced to ask advice of anybody—owned that sound reasoning was not thrown away on her.
Mr. Le Frank answered the demand made on him without hesitation.
“The nurse has not signed that act of submission,” he said, “without having her own private reasons for appearing to give way. Rely on it, she is prepared for you—and there is at least a chance that some proof of it may be found. Have all her movements privately watched—and search the room she lives in, as I searched Miss Carmina’s room last night.”
“Well?” said Mrs. Gallilee.