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288 did I, poor girl?" stroking the hand that lay in hers with what appeared to be genuine sorrow and regret.

"How came she by it, then? Where she did she get it if you did n’t give it to her?"

This time she seemed to be aware that some one besides myself was talking to her, for, hurriedly rising, she looked at the man with a wondering stare, before replying.

"I don’t know who you are, sir; but I can tell you this, the girl had no medicine,—took no dose; she was n’t sick last night that I know of."

"Yet I saw her swallow a powder."

"Saw her!—the world is crazy, or I am—saw her swallow a powder! How could you see her do that or anything else? Has n’t she been shut up in this room for twenty-four hours?"

"Yes; but with a window like that in the roof, it is n’t so very difficult to see into the room, madam."

"Oh," she cried, shrinking, "I have a spy in the house, have I? But I deserve it; I kept her imprisoned in four close walls, and never came to look at her once all night. I don’t complain; but what was it you say you saw her take? medicine? poison?"

"I did n’t say poison."

"But you meant it. You think she has poisoned herself, and that I had a hand in it!"

"No," I hastened to remark, "he does not think you had a hand in it. He says he saw the girl herself swallow something which he believes to have been the occasion of her death, and only asks you now where she obtained it."

"How can I tell? I never gave her anything; did n’t know she had anything."

Somehow, I believed her, and so felt unwilling to