Page:Adventures of Rachel Cunningham.djvu/20

 they were in, leaving her (Rachel,) by herself, On his return and seating himself, he again took the goblet to his lips, but only sipping, as to enjoy its superior relish, he detected a strange alteration in the zest of the wine offensive to his palate; he sipped again,—put down the glass,—observed some trilling change, he thought, in the colour of the liquor;—again put it to his lips,—its offensiveness seemed increased: impulsively, as it were, suspicion flashed upon his mind,—he rung the bell, and commanded the servant who came not to quit the room, while another was sent to order the instant attendance of a medical gentleman, who soon presented himself and on his assaying the wine, instantly pronounced that in the goblet to be strongly impregnated with an active vegetable poison, while that part remaining in the bottle was wholly free and in its pure state. This was evidence too convicting to admit of any possible doubt, and suddenly brought him (Mr. G,) to his rational senses: now it was his thoughts reverted to the fate of the once lovely, but for ever lost to him, Miss Lennam Penville; struck with deep-goading remorse, he now viewed her death as a murder, in which Rachel was the primary agent and himself, in her hand, the vile instrument of its cruel perpetration!

Stung with these hurried thoughts and reflections, he started from his seat and left her and at once gave preremptory directions to his servants for instantly ejecting her then, that night from his house, with whatever property was there belonging to her, and a sum of money to be put into her hands at her departure, never to see him more. Those orders were executed with the utmost precision, and Rachel, now found herself completely thrown upon the world without a protector, abandoned to her own guilty reflections, and left in sole dependence upon her wits for her future means of subsistance:

From this period to the time she next appeared conspicuously figuring on the theatre of her depraved and lewd career, a lapse of nearly three years intervened, and nothing