"A glass of wine," he repeated slowly, as if reflecting. "You noticed no peculiar taste in it? What was it--port?" "Yes," I replied. "An excellent wine it was, without any taste unusual." For the first time the recollection of that glass of wine given me by Eva at The Hollies came back to me. Surely she could not have deliberately given me a fatal draught? "Often," he said, "a substance which is poison to one person is harmless to another. If we could only discover what it really was which affected you, we might treat you for it and cure you much more rapidly. As matters rest, however, you must grow strong again by degrees, and thank Providence that you're still alive. I confess when I first saw you, I thought you'd only a few minutes to live." "Was I so very bad?" "As ill as you could be. You were cold and rigid, and looked as though you were already dead. In fact, any one but a doctor would, I believe, have pronounced life extinct. Your breath on a mirror alone showed respiration, although the heart's movement was so weak as to be practically imperceptible. But don't trouble further over it, you'll be about soon," and shortly afterwards he shook my hand and went on his way to the hospital, already late on my account. I longed to tell him all the curious events of the past, but saw that such a course would be unwise. If I did so, Eva--the woman I adored-- must be prematurely judged, first because of old Lowry's revelations, and now secondly because of the suspicious fact of my illness after partaking of the wine she offered. The idea that the attempt had been made upon me at Riverdene seemed very improbable, because I had dined in common with the other guests; the tea I had taken was poured from the same Queen Anne pot from which the cups of others were filled, and in the whisky-and-soda I had had before leaving I was joined by three other men who had rowed up from a house-boat about a quarter of a mile lower down. As I lay there restless in my bed, trying vainly to read, I spent hours in recalling every event of that day, but could discover no suspicious circumstance other than that incident of the wine at The Hollies. I recollected how Eva after ringing for the servant and ordering it, had herself gone out into the dining-room, and had been absent a couple of minutes or so. Possibly she might only have gone there in order to unlock the cellarette, yet there were likewise, of course, other graver possibilities.