She shivered. “If I had known what I was going in for, I would never have yielded to Jaques’ entreaties,” she said.
“You never quite know what you will be landed in when you embark in these enterprises,” answered the young man lightly. “Well, now to business. You still want to be absent from that meeting to-night?”
“If it is possible.”
“It is quite possible, but you will have to rely on me, and you will also have to be very brave.”
He drew out of his pocket a small, dark-coloured phial, and held it to the light.
“You see that?” he asked. “Well, this is going to be your salvation.”
She shivered again; her nerves were very much out of order this morning, but she began to have an idea of what he was driving at.
“This is the secret, then, that you would not tell me last night. I have got to drink that.”
Moreno nodded. “Yes, if you are still in the same mind as you were yesterday. In my very early youth I was apprenticed to a chemist. I very soon began to acquire a wide knowledge of drugs, and their properties.”
They had been standing up to the present. Moreno pointed to a sofa.