knew they contained an elaborate and costly layette; so she hurried to her own apartment and wrote in a disguised hand a billet that threw out the worst of insinuations, and as a finale she added a pasquinade copied hastily from some low and bitter lampoon.  She returned through the corridor, and, unnoticed, thrust the paper into a crevice of one of the chests.  But Katherine never saw the billet, she was not disturbed in the least, and her ladyship soon saw some one else had gotten hold of it, for there was not a shadow on her Grace’s face.  This goaded Constance to a perfect fury, and she resolved upon extreme measures.

One very dark and stormy day she left the palace dressed as a servant, and drove in a public conveyance to an old chemist’s, who resided in a remote portion of the city.  Here she procured materials that if properly handled and successively served would bring the youthful Duchess to her death.  She resolved in this case to work slowly and cautiously, allowing of no mischance.  It so happened the chemist did not have the articles she required, but promised for a liberal sum to procure them from a certain celebrated physician.  This of course would take some time.  But the physician was in France and would not return for at least a fortnight.  So a fortnight went by and another and another, until Constance’ patience was exhausted, and as she went to the shop for the last time, vowing to wait no longer, if the chemist had not the things, lo! they were there; and after learning how simple it was to use them, she hastened to the palace, there to be met by the news that the Duchess had brought forth a son of rousing weight and strength.  Constance fell into a fever, and was obliged to keep her bed for some weeks; then she arose and after being seen again among the ladies of the Court and appearing as unconcerned as possible, when speaking of the Ellswold heir, she found her way below stair and made siege upon the King’s cellar and looted a good dozen cocoanuts.

She had procured from the chemist a protrusile instrument for letting fluid through the hard outer covering, and in this manner intended to inoculate the milk of the nut with a slow poison.  These, of course, after such treatment, would be returned to their fellows, and the death of Katherine with that of the young lord would be assured.

After a few trials she succeeded in obtaining a result that was entirely satisfactory, if the hole thus made could be effectually plugged.  She filled the aperture with a viscous matter that would in a few moments harden if placed in the sun, and to this end she opened the window and laid the cocoanut in the sun’s rays upon the sill.