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104 The imminence of danger acted like a cold-water douche upon my infatuation, to say nothing of the girl's altered attitude.

The position was a most serious one, and had to be faced promptly. My wife grew rapidly worse during the day; nothing would stop the sickness, and my good old medical friend shook his head. "This is the last straw, as it were, d'Escombe," he said to me when he came downstairs. "I'm afraid she can't rally." And as he said it I caught a look on Estelle's face which made me finally decide on carrying out an idea which I had had in my mind for the last hour.

It was quite certain, Laurence, that if my wife died Estelle was dangerous, and her tongue must be silenced. She had slept in my house for several nights and I had noticed that she wore soft felt slippers while on duty upstairs. This fact enabled me to carry out my scheme. I carefully treated two or three flat-headed tacks with a nicotin alkaloid which I had carefully preserved for over twelve months in view of a crisis such as the present, and these tacks I laid carefully between the door of her room and her bed, feeling fairly certain that she would tread upon one of them. The action of this poison