hat I really don't know, and never did know, where to
find your daughter. I wish I was rich enough to return the money. Not
being able to do that, I will give you a word of advice instead. The
next time you confide any secrets of yours to Mr. Goldenheart, take
better care that no third person hears you."

She read those atrocious lines, without any visible disturbance of
the dreadful composure that possessed her. Her mind made no effort to
discover the person who had listened and betrayed her. To all ordinary
curiosities, to all ordinary emotions, she was morally dead already.

The one thought in her was a thought that might have occurred to a man.
"If I only had my hands on his throat, how I could wring the life out
of him! As it is--" Instead of pursuing the reflection, she threw the
letter into the fire, and rang the bell.

"Take this at once to the nearest chemist's," she said, giving the
strychnine prescription to the servant; "and wait, please, and bring it
back with you."

She opened her desk, when she was alone, and tore up the letters and
papers in it. This done, she took her pen, and wrote a letter. It was
addressed to Amelius.

When the servant entered the room again, bringing with her the
prescription made up, the clock downstairs struck eleven.

CHAPTER 6

Toff returned to the cottage, with the slippers and the stockings.

"What a time you have been gone!" said Amelius.

"It is not my fault, sir," Toff explained. "The stockings I obtained
without difficulty. But the nearest shoe shop in this neighbourhood sold
only coarse manufactures, and all too large. I had to go to my wife, and
get her to take me to the right place. See!" he exclaimed, producing
a pair of quilted silk slippers with blue rosettes, "here is a design,
that is really worthy of pretty feet. Try them on, Miss."

Sally's eyes sparkled at the sight of the slippers. She rose at once,
and limped away to her room. Amelius, observing that she still walked in
pain, called her back. "I had forgotten the blister," he said. "Before
you put on the new stockings, Sally, let me see your foot." He turned
to Toff. "You're always ready with everything," he went on; "I wonder
whether you have got a needle and a bit of worsted thread?"

The old Frenchman answered, with an air of respectful reproach. "Knowing
me, sir, as you do," he said, "could you doubt for a moment that I mend
my own clothes and darn my own stockings?" He withdrew to his bedr