“We can talk more easily if we sit. I have mixed you here a perfectly safe compound, which I want you to drink before I leave, so that I can take away the bottle; I would prefer it was not left lying about, you understand.”
She looked at him with eyes that expressed a great dread. “What effect will it have?”
“I tell you frankly, about six or seven o’clock you will feel very ill, very faint. Those effects will last for the best part of twelve hours. A few hours after that, you will be yourself again.”
She looked at him narrowly. A dark wave of suspicion had suddenly flowed over her mind. She was sure, with a woman’s certain intuition, that he was greatly attracted by her. Still, she knew nothing of him.
He had always said he was a true son of the Revolution, although she had somewhat distrusted the sincerity of that statement. Had he, out of loyalty to the Cause, revealed her perfidy to the others, and was he deputed by them to poison her, under the specious pretext of falling in with her wishes?
He read her dark, suspicious thoughts as easily as he would have read an open book. He spoke very gently, very tenderly. She had never appealed to him more than at this moment, with her pallid cheeks, the haunting dread in her eyes.
“My dear, you do not trust me, I can see. Your mind is full of doubt. Well,”—he stooped and kissed her—“I can only swear by everything I hold holy and sacred that I would not harm a hair of your head.”
No man could lie so convincingly as that. She reached out her hand for the phial, then quickly drew it back.
“I am afraid, dreadfully afraid,” she murmured in a low voice. “I don’t know which to choose—to do as you tell me, or to go to that dreadful place.”
“You must do as you please.” He was still very patient, but she noticed there was certain coldness in his tones.