“Shall I put you up a little cotton wool with the laudanum?” he asked, after he had placed a label on the bottle, and had written a word on it in large letters.

“If you please.  What have you just written on the bottle?” She put the question sharply, with something of distrust as well as curiosity in her manner.

The chemist answered the question by turning the label toward her.  She saw written on it, in large letters—­POISON.

“I like to be on the safe side, miss,” said the old man, smiling.  “Very worthy people in other respects are often sadly careless where poisons are concerned.”

She began trifling again with the bottles on the counter, and put another question, with an ill-concealed anxiety to hear the answer.

“Is there danger,” she asked, “in such a little drop of Laudanum as that?”

“There is Death in it, miss,” replied the chemist, quietly.

“Death to a child, or to a person in delicate health?”

“Death to the strongest man in England, let him be who he may.”

With that answer, the chemist sealed up the bottle in its wrapping of white paper and handed the laudanum to Magdalen across the counter.  She laughed as she took it from him, and paid for it.

“There will be no fear of accidents at North Shingles,” she said.  “I shall keep the bottle locked up in my dressing-case.  If it doesn’t relieve the pain, I must come to you again, and try some other remedy.  Good-morning.”

“Good-morning, miss.”

She went straight back to the house without once looking up, without noticing any one who passed her.  She brushed by Mrs. Wragge in the passage as she might have brushed by a piece of furniture.  She ascended the stairs, and caught her foot twice in her dress, from sheer inattention to the common precaution of holding it up.  The trivial daily interests of life had lost their hold on her already.

In the privacy of her own room, she took the bottle from its wrapping, and threw the paper and the cotton wool into the fire-place.  At the moment when she did this there was a knock at the door.  She hid the little bottle, and looked up impatiently.  Mrs. Wragge came into the room.

“Have you got something for your toothache, my dear?”

“Yes.”

“Can I do anything to help you?”

“No.”

Mrs. Wragge still lingered uneasily near the door.  Her manner showed plainly that she had something more to say.

“What is it?” asked Magdalen, sharply.

“Don’t be angry,” said Mrs. Wragge.  “I’m not settled in my mind about the captain.  He’s a great writer, and he hasn’t written.  He’s as quick as lightning, and he hasn’t come back.  Here’s Saturday, and no signs of him.  Has he run away, do you think?  Has anything happened to him?”

“I should think not.  Go downstairs; I’ll come and speak to you about it directly.”

As soon as she was alone again, Magdalen rose from her chair, advanced toward a cupboard in the room which locked, and paused for a moment, with her hand on the key, in doubt.  Mrs. Wragge’s appearance had disturbed the whole current of her thoughts.  Mrs. Wragge’s last question, trifling as it was, had checked her on the verge of the precipice—­had roused the old vain hope in her once more of release by accident.