stant, she seized the claret jug, and dashed it into pieces on
the floor. "Get the jug from his washhand-stand," she said. When I gave
it to her, she poured some of the water upon the broken fragments of
crystal scattered on the floor. I had put the jug back in its place, and
was returning to Cristel, when the poisoner showed himself, entering from
the servant's room.

"Don't be alarmed," he said. "Gloody's name ought to be Glutton. An
attack of giddiness, thoroughly well deserved. I have relieved him. You
remember, Mr. Roylake, that I was once a surgeon--"

The broken claret jug caught his eye.

We have all read of men who were petrified by terror. Of the few persons
who have really witnessed that spectacle, I am one. The utter stillness
of him was really terrible to see. Cristel wrote in his book an excuse,
no doubt prepared beforehand: "That fall in the next room frightened me,
and I felt faint. I went to get some water from the jug you drank out of,
and it slipped from my hand."

She placed those words under his eyes--she might just as well have shown
them to the dog. A dead man, erect on his feet--so he looked to our eyes.
So he still looked, when I took Cristel's arm, and led her out of that
dreadful presence.

"Take me into the air!" she whispered.

A burst of tears relieved her, after the unutterable suspense that she
had so bravely endured. When she was in some degree composed again, we
walked gently up and down for a minute or two in the cool night air.
"Don't speak to me," she said, as we stopped before her father's door. "I
am not fit for it yet; I know what you feel." I pressed her to my heart,
and let the embrace speak for me. She yielded to it, faintly sighing.
"To-morrow?" I whispered. She bent her head, and left me.

Walking home through the wood, I became aware, little by little, that my
thoughts were not under the customary control. Over and over again, I
tried to review the events of that terrible evening, and failed.
Fragments of other memories presented themselves--and then deserted me.
Nonsense, absolute nonsense, found its way into my mind next, and rose in
idiotic words to my lips. I grew too lazy even to talk to myself. I
strayed from the path. The mossy earth began to rise and sink under my
feet, like the waters in a ground-swell at sea. I stood still, in a state
of idiot-wonder. The ground suddenly rose right up to my face. I remember
no more.

My first conscious exercise of my sense