Waterbury evening Democrat. [volume] (Waterbury, Conn.) 1887-1895, 1891-03-30


fine steadiness his hand hddi How his
pen darted along the paperl After all,
was he SO ill as Ross Thorndyke had
thought? Two pages already-four,
five, six; why, in little while every
ance on his thieving wife, who had
dared to call this wondrous rape from
the locked vaults of science an insult to
Omnipotencei 'Never mind" he kept
saying to himself, ''if do fail to recover
the drug. Sylvan will get this. I'll
make Ross Thorndyke swear he'll give
it him when he's five-and-twenty. And
I'll put letter inside it, too-if my
strength holds out, if don't die here
before can fully bequeath to my eldest
boy this peerless prize"
He did put short letter inside the
larger document. Then, lighting on an
envelope of more than common size, he
package thus made into pocket of his
gown. Scarcely had he done this be-
fore the sound of a step reached him
from the outer hall. 1t was his wife's;
he recognized it. Rising, he quietly
fronted her as she entered the room,
with his face like chalk and his big gray
eyes full of scorn and wrath.
CHAPTER III
She gave great start when she saw
him. "How could you be as mad as
this?" she exclaimed. "Don't you
know that you run the risk of killing
yourself?"
81 run the risk of being killed by
you," he said, with voice bleak in
itself yet sounding all the stranger be-
cause of those days of dumbness.
by me!'' she broke out shrilly.
"What do you mean? But you mustn't
answer-you mustn't speak, you must
only go straight back to your bed"
''I SciU speak little" he replied. ST
tciW say this much, Georgina: that I be-
heve you've come in here while I was
i'll and stolen a certain flask. It's that
I've been searching for. Render it up
to me If you have it."
She changed color a little, and said
coldly: ST don't at all understand you"
"Oh, yes, you do. Come, now; give
me the flask. You dare not deny that
you have taken it. Nobody would have
done SO except yourself"
Her lip curled and she grew paler.
''This is so senseless of you," she NUT
tered. "How could I possibly know
there was any flask that contained your
elixir?"
"Ahr' he cried, shave ever referred
to the elixir? There spoke your own
guilty consciencel'' His anger made
him look like some vengeful ghost. He
raised one clenched hand. "You heard
me talk in my deHrium about that
hask!' he went ON, cor else you had
spied on me during those days worked
so hard, after had been fool enough to
let you learn my secret. You don't
! want to have my death on your soul?
No? Then get me the flask. Do not
lose q moment-2et it!'' He went up
to her and grasped her wrist as he
ended. He was greatly inoensed against
her, and yet any personal roughness
would have been impossible to such a
man as he. That grasp of her wrist,
and, perhaps, the sternness of accuse.
ton in his enlindled eyes as well,
caused her to sink at his feet. He had
made her afraid of him, and possibly he
had stirred her conscience also. She
was woman with an immensely OF
conscience, though the tremulous words
that she now addressed to him would
have implied that she had been very far
from violating one of its high and ex-
tremely mystic laws.
''I-I can't give you that flask" she
stammered, there on her knees before
him. CT did hear you rave about II
when you were out of your mind with
fever. For that reason II came here
into this room-and found it."
Found itr' he faltered, with both
hands Imply falling at his sides. "You
mean that you"
Destroyed it, Egbert? Yes; I did
destroy It." She rose and looked into
his CLASSY eyes as though fearful that
murder might be ambushed there.
"You-destroyed-i he gasped, re
ceding from her. In an instant she saw
that there was no danger Of persona,
assault, and as he sank, breathing heav
fly, into a chair, she went close to his
side.
"Egbert, I thought your trying to d.
. any thing like that was crime
dreadful crime against God. He is all
mi Il .ikbAL H{RNgE2WI