t
me so hard that it brought me to myself.

"Mr. Limmel," I says, trying to speak indifferent, "will you run your
eye over this, and tell me if it's quite right?"

He put on his spectacles and studied the prescription.

"Why, it's one of Dr. Walton's," says he. "What should be wrong with
it?"

"Well--is it dangerous to take?"

"Dangerous--how do you mean?"

I could have shaken the man for his stupidity.

"I mean--if a person was to take too much of it--by mistake of
course--" says I, my heart in my throat.

"Lord bless you, no. It's only lime-water. You might feed it to a baby
by the bottleful."

I gave a great sigh of relief, and hurried on to Mr. Ranford's. But on
the way another thought struck me. If there was nothing to conceal
about my visit to the chemist's, was it my other errand that Mrs.
Brympton wished me to keep private? Somehow, that thought frightened me
worse than the other. Yet the two gentlemen seemed fast friends, and I
would have staked my head on my mistress's goodness. I felt ashamed of
my suspicions, and concluded that I was still disturbed by the strange
events of the night. I left the note at Mr. Ranford's--and, hurrying
back to Brympton, slipped in by a side door without being seen, as I
thought.

An hour later, however, as I was carrying in my mistress's breakfast, I
was stopped in the hall by Mr. Brympton.

"What were you doing out so early?" he says, looking hard at me.

"Early--me, sir?" I said, in a tremble.

"Come, come," he says, an angry red spot coming out on his forehead,
"didn't I see you scuttling home through the shrubbery an hour or more
ago?"

I'm a truthful woman by nature, but at that a lie popped out
ready-made. "No, sir, you didn't," said I, and looked straight back at
him.

He shrugged his shoulders and gave a sullen laugh. "I suppose you think
I was drunk last night?" he asked suddenly.

"No, sir, I don't," I answered, this time truthfully enough.

He turned away with another shrug. "A pretty notion my servants have of
me!" I heard him mutter as he walked off.

Not till I had settled down to my afternoon's sewing did I realize how
the events of the night had shaken me. I couldn't pass that locked door
without a shiver. I knew I had heard someone come out of it, and walk
down the passage ahead of me. I thought of speaking to Mrs. Blinder or
to Mr. Wace, the only two in the house who appeared to have an inkling
of what was going on, but I had a feeling