ut a
wine glass, I added the drug, first tasting and inhaling it, to make
sure it had neither perceptible flavor nor odor. Then I locked the flask
in my dressing-case as the dinner-bell rang.

We were a merry party that night. Mrs. Mershon went to sleep as usual in
the easy-chair in the corner, but Hilyard was gayer than I had seen him
for weeks. A capital mimic, he gave us some of his afternoon's
experiences in the little country town, occasionally rousing Mrs.
Mershon with a start by saying, "Isn't that so, Aunt?" and she, with a
corroborative nod and smile, would doze off again. Cards were suggested,
but, mindful of my hand, its palm still empurpled and scarified, I
suggested that Kate sing for us instead, and we kept her at the piano
until she insisted that Amy should take her place.

Amy was tired, she declared, and indeed, the rose-white face did look
paler than its wont, but she went to the piano and sang Gounod's "Ave
Maria," and two or three airs from Mozart. She always sang sacred music.
Then she sank into a chair, looking utterly fatigued.

"There, Amy," I exclaimed, "I have just the thing for you. I went into
Lafitte's to-day to order some claret down, and he insisted on filling a
flask with some priceless sherry for me. I'll bring you a glass." Amy
protested, "indeed she did not need it, she should be better to-morrow,"
with a languid glance from those clear eyes; but I ran up to my room,
and returned with the flask.

"Just my clumsiness," I said, ruefully looking at the flask, "I uncorked
it, to see if it were really all he said, and I've spilled nearly the
whole of it."

"Oh! come now, Lewis," laughed Hilyard, "Is that the best story you can
invent?"

I laughed too, as I brought a glass, and poured out all that remained.
Hilyard, I had managed, should hold the glass, and as I assumed to
examine the flask, he carried the wine to Amy. Not that I wished, in
case of future inquiries, to implicate him, but I felt a melodramatic
desire that he should give his poison to Amy with his own hand: the wish
to seethe the kid in its mother's milk.

I watched her slowly drain the glass, without one pang that I had given
her death to drink. I experienced an atrocious satisfaction in feeling
that no chance whim had deterred her from consuming it all. I took the
flask to my room again, saying that I had forgotten a letter from my
mother, which I wished Amy to read, as it contained a tender message for
her.

As I