oft hand on her
head; but then she clung to her mother, and her dull eyes gleamed with
joy and gratitude.

Mr. Tiralla had come back from Gnesen, and it seemed to the woman as if
a star were now standing over the house, showing her distinctly the way
she was to go. She felt happier than she had been for a long time.

Her husband had handed her the packet from the chemist's as if it had
been a box of sweets he sometimes brought her from town. It was nicely
done up in striped tissue paper with a piece of red string round it.
But, on taking off the string, she had caught sight of a grinning
death's head and cross-bones on the lid, [Pg 37] and had read the word
"Poison." She had screamed and let the box fall on the table.

"There, you see, now you're afraid of it as well," said Mr. Tiralla.

How little he knew her. She and fear?

"How am I to prepare it? How am I to prepare it?" she cried in an eager
voice.

He showed her how. He felt very important, for the chemist had warned
him to be exceedingly careful. He would not have given such a thing to
anybody else but the well-known Mr. Tiralla, the man had said, not even
if they had brought a paper from the doctor. She was to strew some of
the white powder, which looked as harmless as sifted sugar, on a small
piece of raw meat; and put it in the corners. There would be no rats
left in the cellar then. Or she could strew some of the wheat which was
in the paper bag, and which you could hardly distinguish from ordinary
wheat, as it only looked a little redder.

"But I implore you to be careful, my dove. Swear that you'll be very
careful, Sophia." Mr. Tiralla was seized with a sudden fear, and wiped
the perspiration from his forehead. He felt burning, although the cold
snow still clung to his fur collar and cap. He took oft his top-coat
and stretched his limbs as though he felt oppressed, whilst she stood
motionless at the table and stared at the packet with gleaming eyes.

"Which is the most efficacious?" she asked in a dreamy voice, "the
powder or the wheat?"

"They're both equally efficacious," he assured her uneasily. "The
wheat is bad enough, but you've only to swallow a little of that white
stuff--oh, you needn't even swallow it, hardly touch it with the tip of
your tongue, and you're done for. It's a deadly poison--strychnine." He
shuddered. "Oh, how could [Pg 38] I bring such a thing home with me? I
am possessed by the devil. Give me it!" He snatched the packet o