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300 when be glanced in turn at her face all doubt died within him. Whether distorted with rage or smiling in malicious triumph, the light of reason had irrevocably fled from it; and the workings of her maniac mind showed plainly in her wildly staring eyes.

Mrs. Gael's words returned to him again, and with them a complete understanding of her attitude. No wonder that in view of her own former detention she dared not speak and proclaim the lunacy of this woman, who with the cunning of madness had concealed her condition from all the rest of the world even while realizing and glorying in it. Effie Meade had been swaying to and fro in an ecstasy of triumphant glee; but all at once she stopped and glanced at the fragments of the cup upon the floor.

"That too would have worked my will," she muttered. "When Cissie went into the drawing-room to talk to that young upstart from the police who was trying to discover my secret I listened and heard her defame my darling, my Rannie. That minute decided her fate, but I was forced to dissemble. I did not want her to die as Julian had; I wanted her to suffer, to fade before my eyes as her mother had; that mother whom she was so like.

"I delved through Rannie's books once more and found out about the white powder and how easily it could be obtained. I told the clerk in the drugstore that I wanted it to kill rats; and so I did! The rats who stood between my boy and the wealth which I meant should be all his.

"I began to give the arsenic to her the very next day, but it was not until Saturday that she showed the first effects, and when she complained I rejoiced. I had mixed