Quite stunned by the terrible shock, dazed, terrified, was the heiress, scarcely capable of comprehending what had occurred.  Then with a sad, scared face, motioning Phillipa on one side, who, equally white and grief-stricken, would have helped her, she crept slowly upstairs, feeling that at one blow the whole fabric of her social repute was tumbled in the dust.

The lights were out, the play was over, the house still and silent, when, with loud shrieks, Mrs. Purling’s maid rushed to Phillipa’s room.

“Mrs. Purling, ma’am!—­my mistress, she is dying!  Come to her!  She is nearly gone!”

In truth, the poor old woman was in the extremest agony; it was quite terrible to see her.  She gasped as if for air; her whole frame jerked and twitched with the violence of her convulsions; gradually her body was drawn in a curve, like that of a tensely-strung bow.

The spasms abated, then recommenced; abated, then raged with increased fury.  But through it all she was conscious; she had even the power of speech, and cried aloud again and again, with a bitter heart-wrung cry, for “Harold!  Harold!” the absent much-wronged son.

“The symptoms are those of tetanus,” said the nearest medical practitioner, who had been called in.  He seemed fairly puzzled.  “Tetanus or—­” He did not finish the sentence, because the single word that was on his lips formed a serious charge against a person or persons unknown.  “But there is nothing to explain lock-jaw; while the abatement of the symptoms points to—­” Again he paused.

The muscles of the mouth, which had been the last attacked, gradually resumed their normal condition.  The patient appeared altogether more easy, the writhings subsided; presently, as if utterly exhausted, she sank off to sleep.

Harold Purling had come up post-haste from Harbridge; and when the mother opened her eyes they rested upon her son.

A hurried consultation passed in whispers between the two doctors.  Phillipa was present; she and the maid had not left Mrs. Purling all night.

“Mother,” said Harold, “you are out of all danger.  Tell me—­do you recollect taking anything likely to make you ill?”

“Only the pills.”  She pointed to the family medicine—­a box of which stood always by her bedside.  She had some curious notion that it was her duty to show belief in the Primeval Pills, and she made a practice of swallowing two morning and night.

Harold opened the box; examined the pills; finally put one into his mouth and bit it through.  Bitter as gall.

“They have been tampered with,” he said.  “These contain strychnia.  You have had a narrow escape of being poisoned, dearest mother—­poisoned by your own Pills!”

He half smiled at the conceit.

“There has been foul play, I swear.  It shall be sifted to the bottom, and the guilty called to serious account.”

But the mystery was never solved.  If Phillipa had in her heart misgivings, she kept her suspicions to herself; no one accused her; there seemed explanation for her cowed and trembling manner in Gilly’s downfall and disgrace.  The man himself never reappeared openly; only now and again he swooped down and robbed Phillipa of all she, possessed—­the thrift of her allowance from Mrs. Purling.