"Weeks went by," she continued, after a pause. "I still remained on friendly terms with Mrs. Blain and her daughter, knowing them to be innocent. Madame never went out, but once or twice Hartmann visited her. Whenever he did so, high words usually arose, regarding money, it seemed, and once Blain, who by his family was supposed to be still in Paris, came late at night, ill-dressed and dirty. It was then that I first learnt the motive for the ingenious conspiracy. Blain seemed in abject fear that the police had somehow established the identity of the dead man. If so, he said, all had been futile. Hartmann, it appeared, had a daughter whom I had never seen, and it was through her that the activity of the police had been ascertained." Then, turning her eyes again to me with an undisguised love-look, Eva exclaimed, "The tortures of conscience which I suffered through those summer days when you declared your love are known to God alone. My position was a terrible one, for I saw that by preserving this secret I had been an accessory to a most foul and cowardly crime, and I held back from your embrace, knowing that one day ere long I should be arrested and brought to punishment. I lived on, my heart gripped by that awful sin in which I had been unwittingly implicated. Then one day you called at The Hollies and I gave you some wine from a fresh bottle which I opened myself. It was wine which Madame had specially ordered from the stores on my account because the doctor had prescribed port for me. That wine was poisoned, and you narrowly escaped death. The fatal draught was intended for me! Hartmann and Madame Damant had, indeed, brought poisoning to a fine art." "Was poison never in your possession?" inquired Boyd gravely. "Yes," she responded without a second's hesitation. "After the affair at Phillimore Place I discovered Hartmann's address, and from a paper in Madame's jewel-cabinet I copied some strange name--Latin, I think--which I knew related to one of the secret poisons. Then, in order to satisfy myself as to Hartmann's position, I went to him to obtain some. My idea was that the information I could thus obtain would be of use if I were arrested. I found that under the name of Morris Lowry he had for years kept a herbalist's shop near the _Elephant and Castle_. Fortunately, by reason of my veil, he did not recognise me, and after some haggling gave me some greyish powder in a small wooden box securely sealed. I discovered afterwards that his daughter was in love with your friend Mr. Cleugh, therefore it must have been through the latter that the old man became aware of the movements of the police." "Yes," said Lily simply, "it was." The revelation held her dumbfounded. "Then Hartmann and Lowry were actually one and the same?" I observed, bewildered.