"No, I shall not do that," he answered, smiling a little. "The consciousness of innocence will keep me up." I sat looking at him. What light could get in through the dusty skylight fell on his silver hair, which fell back from his pale face. He held his head down in thought, only raising it to answer me. Some movement in the closet betokened old Jones's speedy approach, and I hastened to assure Abel that all sensible people would not doubt his innocence. "No one need doubt it, Master Johnny," he answered firmly, his eye kindling. "I never had a grain of arsenic in my house; I have never had any other poison. There are herbs from which poison may be distilled, but I have never gathered them. When it comes to people needing poison--and there are some diseases of the human frame that it may be good for--they should go to a qualified medical man, not to a herbalist. No. I have never, never had poison or poisonous herbs withing my dwelling; therefore (putting other reasons aside) it is _impossible_ that those pills can have been my pills. God hears me say it, and knows that it is true." Old Jones, balancing the keys in his hand, was standing within the room, listening. Abel Crew was so respectable and courteous a prisoner, compared with those he generally had in the lock-up, burglars, tipsy men, and the like, returning him a "thank you" instead of an oath, that he had already begun to regard him with some favour, and the assertion seemed to make an impression on him. "Look here," said he. "Whose pills could they have been, if they warn't yours?" "I cannot imagine," returned Abel Crew. "I am as curious about it as any one else--Master Ludlow here knows I am. I dare say it will come out sometime. They _could not_ have been made up by me." "What was that you told the coroner about your pill-boxes being marked?" asked old Jones. "And so they are marked; all of them. The pill-box I saw there----" "I mean the stock o' boxes you've got at home. Be they all marked?" "Every one of them. When I have in a fresh lot of pill-boxes the first thing I do, on bringing them home, is to mark them." "Then look here. You just trust me with the key of your place, and tell me where the boxes are to be found, and I'll go and secure 'em, and lay 'em afore the coroner. If they be all found marked, it'll tell in your favour." The advice sounded good, and Abel Crew handed over his key. Jones looked solemn as he and I went away together. "It's an odd thing, though, Master Johnny, ain't it, how the pison could ha' got into them there pills," said he slowly, as he put the big key into the lock of the outer door.