should not be
repaid--what meant his eternal, "fine generous lad!" "spirited young
man!" and so on? What, above all, meant that look of diabolical hate
which shot out from his cavernous eyes towards Henry Rogers when he
thought himself unobserved, just after satisfying a fresh claim on his
purse? Much practice in reading the faces and deportment of such men
made it pretty clear to me that Jackson's course of action respecting
the young man and his money was not yet decided upon in his own mind;
that he was still perplexed and irresolute; and hence the apparent
contradiction in his words and acts.

Henry Rogers at length dropped asleep with his head upon one of the
settle-tables; Jackson sank into sullen silence; the noisy room grew
quiet; and I came away.

I was impressed with a belief that Jackson entertained some sinister
design against his youthful and inexperienced lodgers, and I determined
to acquaint them with my suspicions. For this purpose Mr. Morgan, who
had a patient living near Jackson's house, undertook to invite them to
tea on some early evening, on the pretence that he had heard of a tavern
that might suit them when they should receive their fortune. Let me
confess, too, that I had another design besides putting the young people
on their guard against Jackson. I thought it very probable that it would
not be difficult to glean from them some interesting and suggestive
particulars concerning the ways, means, practices, outgoings and
incomings, of their worthy landlord's household.

Four more days passed unprofitably away, and I was becoming weary of the
business, when about five o'clock in the afternoon the apothecary
galloped up to his door on a borrowed horse, jumped off with surprising
celerity, and with a face as white as his own magnesia, burst out as he
hurried into the room where I was sitting: "Here's a pretty kettle of
fish! Henry Rogers has been poisoned, and by his wife!"

"Poisoned!"

"Yes, poisoned; although, thanks to my being on the spot, I think he
will recover. But I must instantly to Dr. Edwards: I will tell you all
when I return."

The promised "all" was this: Morgan was passing slowly by Jackson's
house, in the hope of seeing either Mr. or Mrs. Rogers, when the
servant-woman, Jane Riddet, ran out and begged him to come in, as their
lodger had been taken suddenly ill. Ill indeed! The surface of his body
was cold as death, and the apothecary quickly discovered that he had
been pois