woman detected in a crime, the
conception and execution of which must have required an evil courage
and determination happily seldom possessed by women.

"Stand up!" I said. "Lift her, then, Enva and Eirale. Unfasten the
shoulder-clasps and zone."

As her outer robe dropped, Eive snatched at an object in its folds,
but too late; and the electric keys, which gave access to all my
cases, papers, and to the medicine-chest above all, lay glittering on
the ground.

"That cup Eive brought to me. Which of you saw her?"

"I did," said Enva quietly, all feelings of malice and curiosity alike
awed into silence by the evidence of some terrible, though as yet to
them unknown, secret. "She mixed it and brought it hither herself."

"And," I said, "it contains a poison against which, had I drunk
one-half the draught, no antidote could have availed--a poison to
which these keys only could have given access."

Again the test-stone was applied, and again the discoloration
testified to the truth of the charge.

"You have seen?" I said.

"We have seen," answered Enva, in the same tone of horror, too deep to
be other than quiet.

We all left the room, closing the door upon the prisoner. Dismissing
the girls to their own chambers, with strict injunctions not to quit
them unpermitted, I was left alone with Eveena. We were silent for
some minutes, my own heart oppressed with mingled emotions, all
intensely painful, but so confused that, while conscious of acute
suffering, I scarcely realised anything that had occurred. Eveena, who
knelt beside me, though deeply horror-struck, was less surprised and
was far less agitated than I. At last, leaning forward with her arms
on my knee and looking up in my face, she was about to speak. But the
touch and look seemed to break a spell, and, shuddering from head to
foot, I burst into tears like those of an hysterical girl. When, with
the strongest effort that shame and necessity could prompt, aided by
her silent soothing, I had somewhat regained my self-command, Eveena
spoke, in the same attitude and with the same look:--

"You said once that you could pardon such an attempt. That you should
ever forgive at heart cannot be. That punishment should not follow so
terrible a crime, even I cannot desire. But for _my_ sake, do not give
her up to the doom she has deserved. Do you know" (as I was silent)
"what that doom is?"

"Death, I suppose."

"Yes!" she said, shuddering, "but death with tortur