“May I venture to ask what has happened?”

“An attempt to poison the Colonel at his own table.”

“To poison the Colonel?” asked Heideck surprised.

“Yes.  Colonel Baird’s habit is to drink a tumbler of ice-water before each meal.  To-day, at tiffin, the Indian butler gave it him as usual.  The water appeared to him rather cloudy.  He did not drink it at once, and after a few minutes he noticed distinctly a white sediment at the bottom of the tumbler.  When he called for the Indian butler, the man had disappeared, and has not been found yet.  That increased our suspicion that an attempt at poisoning had been made.  A small quantity of the fluid had been put into a dish which contained the food for the dogs.  It was then placed into a rat-trap which contained five or six of these ravenous beasts.  Ten minutes later they were dead.  The remains of the water have been given to Doctor Hopkins.  He is going to make a chemical analysis, and to tell us about it at dinner-time.”

Before Heideck could find the time again to resume the discussion of Edith’s personal affairs, Mrs. Baird came in, accompanied by the Colonel and his adjutant.  They all shook hands with him in the most charming way, and after Doctor Hopkins had also arrived, a small man with a very vivacious manner, they went in to dinner.

Perhaps the Colonel would have preferred that nothing should be said in Heideck’s presence about the poisoning attempt.  His wife’s impatience and excitement, however, could not be restrained.

“Well, Doctor Hopkins,” she asked, “and what have you found?”

The Doctor evidently had been waiting for this.

“One of the most deadly poisons the Indians know,” he answered.  “The diamond powder.  There is no antidote for it, and it is impossible to trace it in the body of the poisoned person, because it is of vegetable nature, and gets absorbed in the tissues.”

A cry of horror escaped Mrs. Baird.  She covered her eyes with her hand.

Mr. Hopkins continued:  “I have never before come across the diamond powder, notwithstanding its use is said not to be uncommon.  The preparation of it is a secret, anxiously guarded by the Indian physicians.  It seems to play the same part at the Courts of the Indian princes that the celebrated ‘aqua tuffana’ did in the Middle Ages amongst the Italian despots.”

These learned explanations of Doctor Hopkins were not adapted to raise the spirits of the company.  Everyone remembered that this horrible attempt had only been frustrated by a lucky chance.  The Colonel, who seemed to feel very uncomfortable on listening to the Doctor’s conversation, gave a sign to his wife to rise, rather sooner than usual.

Tea and drinks cooled in ice were served in the verandah, charmingly illuminated by coloured lamps.  Heideck had only had eyes for Edith all the evening.  But he had avoided anxiously everything which might have betrayed his feelings.  And, even now, he would not have dared to join her in the half-dark corner of the verandah, where she had seated herself, unless she had called out to him asking him to take the empty seat at her side.