“Oh, I assure you it won’t,” declared Mansell, laughing. “It’s a good brand, and I can recommend it. Besides the night is chilly.”
He was watching her face narrowly, but he assumed a well-feigned air of unconcern. His argument, however, convinced her that another glass would do her no harm, thereupon she raised it to her lips and drank it. Being in a hurry to return home, she noticed no peculiar taste about it, and the man smiled faintly with self-satisfaction.
“I have to go to King’s Cross, so I’ll drive you home if you’ll allow me,” he suggested, as they descended to the street, and to this proposal she gladly acquiesced.
Outside they entered a brougham that was apparently awaiting them—and which Mansell incidentally remarked was his own—and were quickly driven along Shaftesbury Avenue, on their way to King’s Cross.
Scarcely had they been in the carriage five minutes when she was seized with a sudden giddiness and faintness. At first she struggled against it, trying to rouse herself, for she attributed it to the wine she had consumed, combined with the heated atmosphere. Recognising the disgrace which would fall upon her should she return to her mother intoxicated, she determined that her companion should notice no difference in her manner. In the shifting lights that flashed into the carriage she felt confident that he would be unable to detect any change in her. It was by her voice alone that he could discover her intoxication, and, therefore, she continued the conversation in what she believed was the same tone as before.
Yet, as they drove along, the strange, sickening sensation increased, her eyes burned, and an acute pain on the top of her head caused a feeling as if her brain were a leaden weight. With alarm she became aware that it was gradually taking possession of her senses, and that to bear up against it was unavailing. Confused noises sounded in her ears, her breath became short, and she fancied she was falling from a great height. Then all the objects and lights in the street seemed to dance about her, and, with a suppressed groan, she sank back into the corner of the carriage inert and insensible.
The man by her side watched her gradually lapsing into unconsciousness with evident satisfaction, and, having taken both her arms and worked them up and down violently to assure himself of her total insensibility, he shouted to the coachman that he would go to another address—one which necessitated the brougham being driven back towards the place whence they had started.
Two hours afterwards a strange scene was presented in a house that stood by itself in the centre of a market garden, in a lonely position surrounded by fields midway between Twickenham and Isleworth.
In a small, bare attic, carpetless and almost devoid of furniture, the inanimate form of Dolly Vivian lay crouched in a rickety armchair. The feeble light of a guttering candle revealed the closed eyes and deathlike pallor of the features, while her breathing was almost imperceptible, so completely had the drug accomplished its work.
Near her stood Mansell and the man who had dogged their movements during the evening.