Page:Live and Let Live.djvu/163

Rh But had she not best address herself to the father? it would be easy to rouse his fears. He was now in Philadelphia, and expected home the next day. In the intervening night she might perhaps get some proof to substantiate her suspicions. Thus, with a prudence beyond her years, determining on her course, she was careful not to betray, by word or sign, her suspicions to Adéle. The next night Lucy lay awake with a beating heart till Eugene began his usual fretting. Adéle gave him his milk, and soothed him to sleep; but his sleep was restless, and she was long kept awake. Just as her breathing betrayed that she had fallen asleep, and Lucy, believing that all danger for that night was past, was yielding to the demands of nature, Eugene started up wide awake and screaming. This was too much for Adéle's patience. He had taken his milk, and she had no proper resource for quieting him, so she adopted that most convenient to herself; and rising, she took the vial from its hiding-place, and, with her back towards Lucy's bed, was in the act of dropping some drops into a spoon, when Lucy sprang upon her and wrested the vial from her hand. A scuffle ensued; and Adéle succeeding in regaining the vial, instantly threw it into the grate; and then, recovering her self-possession, as even weak persons sometimes do in great emergencies, she said, with forced calmness, "What is it all? Why let me not take my drops?"

"Your drops, Adéle! oh, don't think to deceive me! It was the drops I saw you give the baby last night! horrid laudanum!"

"Laudanum—I swear it was not—you have no proof it was laudanum."