thin the next half-hour or so. Of course!
How plain it all was now!

Well, there was nothing to do but to restore it to the doctor and
finish up that unfortunate episode. She would do so at once.... And
yet--why reopen the matter? She had taken her scolding, why should she
give him the satisfaction of... Stay! Was it possible, after all her
theorising, that what the doctor had been so disturbed about was this
actual needle itself? She had rejected that explanation as wholly
absurd, but now that she held the concrete object in her hand, she
began to wonder. Certainly he had made strong efforts to recover it,
had even joined in the search. For that matter--why, what about that
smell of tobacco in her room? What about her conviction that someone
had gone through her things? Suppose, incredible as it seemed, the
doctor had really been there while she was out of the house, turning
everything over in the hope of finding his lost property? Odd that she
had never thought of that possibility until now.

She turned the little instrument over, looking at it thoughtfully. If
what she had been thinking was really true, why was it that he wanted
this particular needle back? what was there about it? ... All at once
it came upon her like a thunderbolt that it was soon after the last
injection, only a few hours, that she had noticed the change in Sir
Charles. Iron and arsenic, that could have no bad effect--on the
contrary, it put strength into one. With an idea forming in her mind,
she furtively raised the needle to the light and examined it closely.
A trace of palish liquid remained. Was it the exact hue of the
familiar mixture? She could almost think it was slightly different in
colour, but it was impossible to be sure. Fixedly she regarded it,
recalling meantime the mottled red of the doctor's face, his
unreasoning fury. If he had been only a little less enraged!

There was a tightness in her chest. The suspicion, monstrous,
unthinkable, seemed likely to burst her head asunder. She heard within
her two voices arguing. The first said, "What utter nonsense! Such
things don't happen, at least, not to you, not in this atmosphere of
safety." The second retorted promptly, "Why should it be nonsense?
Such things do happen, why not to you?"

Chalmers entered softly, removed the coffee things and placed whisky
and soda, although there was no one to want it. His quiet step, the
ticking of the buhl clock, the very