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280 presence no longer. Do not leave her bedside nor permit anyone to approach her on any pretext, and see that nothing but your medicine passes her lips." He paused as a quick thought came to him. "Would it be possible to give her some powerful opiate which could not harm her and yet would throw her into an immediate and profound sleep which might be depended upon to last at least for some hours?"

"It would, of course," the physician assented.

"I hope you will administer it then as soon as you can make some pretext to be absolutely alone with her. That will preclude in a plausible manner any suggestion of nourishment for her until I have had time to perfect my plan.—Come now, please, Doctor. I will slip in first and close the door. After I have had time to get upstairs, ring and ask whoever admits you how Miss Chalmers is."

Odell suited the action to the word, and from the seclusion of Rannie's half-closed door had the satisfaction of seeing the doctor enter Cissie Chalmers's room.

He had noticed as he passed the hall chair that the tray was gone, and now he turned questioningly to Rannie.

"Aunt Effie came out looking for Peters with the broth, and I didn't think you wanted even her to know what you had discovered just yet, so I told her that I had heard you out in the hall and gone out to speak to you just as you stood there with the tray in your hand; said I had spoken so suddenly that you had upset the cup," the boy explained with his twisted grin. "It would be kind of a fierce thing for her to realize that she had probably been feeding Cissie poison with her own hands, wouldn't it? Aunt Effie's the squeamish sort; can't bear to see anybody hurt. They say