“Watch her,” said the detective to Tom Ostrello, and he and Raymond entered the cottage.  As they did so, they stumbled over a person lying on the floor.

“Margaret!” burst out the young man and caught his sweetheart in his arms.  Then he gave a gasp, and staggered with his burden to the bed.  “She is dead!”

“Dead!” ejaculated Adam Adams.  “You are certain?” He placed his ear to her heart.  “No, she still lives.”

“But what does this mean?  Margaret!  Margaret!  Speak to me!  What has happened to you?”

The girl offered no reply, nor did she open her eyes.  She rested on him and on the bed like a leaden weight.  He kissed her fondly, a great agony filling his soul.

Adam Adams looked around the room.  On the table rested a glass, with a dirty substance at the bottom.  He tasted the stuff.  It was sweetishly bitter.  He ran outside.

“Tell me at once, did Matlock Styles say anything about poisoning this young lady?” he demanded, catching the old woman by the arm.  “The truth now, remember!”

“No, he didn’t say anything.  But he had some poison, a powder—­you put it in water.  It kills a person in six to ten hours, sure.”

“We must have a doctor!”

Tom Ostrello had heard the talk and saw what had happened.

“I’ll get a doctor, if you’ll watch the old woman.  I can get a horse at Styles’ farm.”

“Do it, and hurry!” cried Raymond.  “Take the best horse and bring the doctor at once.  Tell him it is poison—­a powder in water.  Offer him any amount of money—­”

“I will!” Ostrello shouted back.  He was running down the hill path with the swiftness of a college sprinter.  In a moment the bushes hid him from sight.

Adam Adams was talking to the old woman.  “You know about the poison.  Is there nothing we can give her to counteract the effects?  Do something, and I’ll not be so hard on you when you stand up for trial.”

“I can do nothing.  But wait, yes, I can!  Make a fire, and boil some water!”

She ran to the back of the cottage and to some bushes growing close at hand.  With her bare hands she dug at the roots and tore them up, stripping off the bark with her teeth.  Adam Adams comprehended, and lit a fire and set on the kettle to boil.  Then the roots were placed in the boiling water.

“Make her drink—­it will do her good,” said the old woman.  “I swear it will help, at least a little—­until the doctor comes.”  And with shaking hands, she poured the concoction she had made into a saucer to cool.

It was no easy matter to get Margaret to swallow, but after a while it was accomplished, and her heart appeared to beat a trifle more steadily.  But still she did not rouse up or open her eyes, and Raymond was as depressed as before.

“We can’t overcome the effects of the drug,” he groaned.  “Oh, if only the doctor would come!”