The Highland monthly - National Library of Scotland

A Strange Revenge. 587
of wine, knowing it was her favourite remedy when so pro-
strated ; but she anticipated her evils.
" Take a cup of wine before you start," she said
soh'citously, " you look so ill, Richard dear,"
He brought the wine himself, smilingly protesting there
was no necessity for calling a servant ; and when he
returned he was paler still, and his hand shook until the
liquid spilt on the salver. When Flora raised the glass with
a loving toast for his welfare and safe homing-coming, he
started so perceptibly that she regarded him with a look of
enquiry as the wine touched her lips.
" A cold shiver," he hurriedly explained ; but in his
imagination—who can account for such mysteries otherwise
;than subjectively—he had distinctly heard the words :
" Dash that fatal cup from her hand."
It was too late—the glass was empty ; the deed had
been done, come good of it, come evil ! He
felt guilty as a
criminal. A hurried embrace, and he had rushed from the
apartment, leaving Flora's loving assurances half uttered.
The whole scene re-enacted itself in his brain as he
drove along. He could not keep his eyes from that upper
window. The powder would be slow in its operation, the
Professor had assured him ; would Flora already be feeling
drowsy? It would be " a dreamless slumber !" Why, was
that not a poetic description of death itself? A moment
more, and he would get a last glimpse of the Castle—and
that x.indow.
" Stop, stop," he shouted to John, and the vehicle was
drawn up with an abrup^ness that made the pony rear.
alarm.
" What's wrang, Maister Richard ? queried John in
It was only the laird lighting his private sitting-room,
but the additional light had conjured up in Richard's brain
a sudden illumination of the Castle and an alarmed rush to
Flora's room by its terror-stricken inmates.
" It's nothing, John ; only one likes to get a last
glimpse of the old place— life is uncertain, you know."