important duty of all; the duty of looking in
the family medicine chest, for the laudanum
which Mr. Candy used last year.

Ten minutes since, I caught Betteredge at
an unoccupied moment, and told him what I
wanted. Without a word of objection, without
so much as an attempt to produce his pocketbook,
he led the way (making allowances for
me at every step) to the store-room in which
the medicine chest was kept.

I found the bottle, carefully guarded by a
glass stopper tied over with leather. The
preparation of opium which it contained was, as I
had anticipated, the common Tincture of laudanum.
Finding the bottle still well filled, I have
resolved to use it, in preference to employing
either of the two preparations with which I had
taken care to provide myself, in case of
emergency.

The question of the quantity which I am to
administer, presents certain difficulties. I have
thought it over, and have decided on increasing
the dose.

My notes inform me that Mr. Candy only
administered twenty-five minims. This is a small
dose to have produced the results which
followed—even in the case of a person so sensitive
as Mr. Blake. I think it highly probable
that Mr. Candy gave more than he supposed
himself to have given—knowing, as I do, that
he has a keen relish of the pleasures of the
table, and that measured out the laudanum
on the birthday, after dinner. In any case, I
shall run the risk of enlarging the dose to forty
minims. On this occasion, Mr. Blake knows
beforehand that he is going to take the laudanum
—which is equivalent, physiologically
speaking, to his having (unconsciously to
himself) a certain capacity in him to resist the
effects. If my view is right, a larger quantity
is therefore imperatively required, this time, to
repeat the results which the smaller quantity
produced, last year.

* * * * *

Ten o'clock.—The witnesses, or the company
(which shall I call them?) reached the house
an hour since.

A little before nine o'clock, I prevailed on
Mr. Blake to accompany me to his bedroom;
stating, as a reason, that I wished him to look
round it, for the last time, in order to make
quite sure that nothing had been forgotten in
the refurnishing of the room. I had previously
arranged with Betteredge, that the bedchamber
prepared for Mr. Bruff should be the next room
to Mr. Blake's, and that I should be informed
of the lawyer's arrival by a knock at the door.
Five minutes after the clock in the hall had
struck nine, I heard the knock; and, going out
immediately, met Mr. Bruff in the corridor.

My personal appearance (as usual) told against
me. Mr. Bruff's distrust looked at me plainly
enough out of Mr. Bruff's eyes. Being well
used to producing this effect on strangers, I did
not hesitate a moment in saying what I wanted
to say, before the lawyer found his way into
Mr. Blake's room.

"You have travelled here, I believe, in
company with Mrs. Merridew and Miss Verinder?"
I said.

"Yes," answered Mr. Bruff, as drily as
might be.

"Miss Verinder has probably told you, that
I wish her presence in the house (and Mrs.
Merridew's presence of course), to be kept a
secret from Mr. Blake, until my experiment on
him has been tried first?"

"I know that I am to hold my tongue, sir!"
said Mr. Bruff impatiently. "Being habitually
silent on the subject of human folly, I am all
the readier to keep my lips closed on this
occasion. Does that satisfy you?"

I bowed, and left Betteredge to show him to
his room. Betteredge gave me one look at
parting, which said, as if in so many words,
"You have caught a Tartar, Mr. Jennings—and
the name of him is Bruff."

It was next necessary to get the meeting
over with the two ladies. I descended the stairs
—a little nervously, I confess—on my way to
Miss Verinder's sitting-room.

The gardener's wife (charged with looking
after the accommodation of the ladies) met me
in the first floor corridor. This excellent woman
treats me with an excessive civility, which is
plainly the offspring of downright terror. She
stares, trembles, and curtseys, whenever I speak
to her. On my asking for Miss Verinder, she
stared, trembled, and would no doubt have
curtseyed next, if Miss Verinder herself had not
cut that ceremony short, by suddenly opening
her sitting-room door.

"Is that Mr. Jennings?" she asked.

Before I could answer, she came out eagerly
to speak to me in the corridor. We met under
the light of a lamp on a bracket. At the first
sight of me, Miss Verinder stopped, and
hesitated. She recovered herself instantly,
coloured for a moment—and then, with a charming
frankness, offered me her hand.

"I can't treat you like a stranger, Mr.
Jennings," she said. "Oh, if you only knew
how happy your letters have made me!"

She looked at my ugly wrinkled face, with a
bright gratitude so new to me in my experience
of my fellow-creatures, that I was at a loss
how to answer her. Nothing had prepared me
for her kindness and her beauty. The misery
of many years has not hardened my heart,
thank God. I was as awkward and as shy
with her, as if I had been a lad in my teens.

"Where is he now?" she asked, giving
free expression to her one dominant interest
—the interest in Mr. Blake. "What is he
doing? Has he spoken of me? Is he in good
spirits? How does he bear the sight of the
house, after what happened in it last year?
When are you going to give him the
laudanum? May I see you pour it out? I am
so interested; I am so excited—I have ten
thousand things to say to you, and they all
crowd together so that I don't know what to
say first. Do you wonder at the interest I
take in this?"