Page:Live and Let Live.djvu/162

162 stretched out his arms to her. She suspected that Adéle, in her impatience, inflicted some personal violence upon him, and particularly after hearing her assure Mr. Hartell the next morning that it was the cries of cats, and not his child's, that had awakened him. On the same morning she saw Eugene frequently put his hand to a part of the arm covered by his sleeve, and, on examining it, she found it black and blue, and looking as if it had been severely pinched. "Could Adéle," she asked herself, "have done this?" it seemed to her too fiendish an act; but suspicion had taken possession of her, and she determined to be watchful. She loved the child fondly, and felt the more tenderly for it from the carelessness of its natural protector.

The next night Eugene waked at his usual time, and his first whimper roused Lucy from her light slumbers. She took care to give no sign that she was awake. Adéle got out of bed, and taking up the night-lamp, and ascertaining, as she supposed, that Lucy was sleeping, she took a vial from under the pillow, dropped a few drops into Eugene's milk, and fed him. He soon fell asleep, and, as Lucy observed, slept late and heavily the next morning. All the next day Lucy was wretched. She shed bitter tears over the poor little boy, who, it seemed to her, would be the victim of his unprincipled nurse. She was uncertain as to the best course to pursue. She felt sure Adéle had given the child laudanum; but what use would there be in telling the mother so? Adéle would frame her own lies for the occasion, and would be believed; and then she herself would probably be sent off in disgrace, and no one would be left to comfort the poor little boy.