"Who is there, amidst us all, that would attempt to injure Lady Jenkins?" she asked. "The household consists only of myself and the servants. _They_ would not seek to harm their mistress." "Not so sure; not so sure. It is amidst those servants that we must look for the culprit. Dr. Knox thinks so, and so do I." Madame's face of astonishment was too genuine to be doubted. She feebly lifted her hands in disbelief. To suspect the servants seemed, to her, as ridiculous as the suspicion itself. "Her maid, Lettice, and the housemaid, Sarah, are the only two servants who approach her when she is ill, sir: Sarah but very little. Both of them are kind-hearted young women." Mr. Tamlyn coughed. Whether he would have gone on to impart his doubt of Lettice cannot be known. During the slight silence Lettice herself entered the room with her mistress's medicine. A quick, dark-eyed young woman, in a light print gown. The stir aroused Lady Jenkins. Madame St. Vincent measured out the physic, and was handing it to the patient, when Mr. Tamlyn seized the wine-glass. "It's all right," he observed, after smelling and tasting, speaking apparently to himself: and Lady Jenkins took it. "That is the young woman you must especially watch," whispered Mr. Tamlyn, as Lettice retired with her waiter. "What! Lettice?" exclaimed madame, opening her eyes. "Yes; I should advise you to do so. She is the only one who is much about her mistress," he added, as if he would account for the advice. "_Watch her._" Leaving madame at the window to digest the mandate and to get over her astonishment, he sat down by Lady Jenkins again, and began talking of this and that: the fineness of the weather, the gossip passing in the town. "What do you take?" he asked abruptly. "Take?" she repeated. "What is it that I take, Patty?" appealing to her companion. "Nay, but I want you to tell me yourself," hastily interposed the doctor. "Don't trouble madame." "But I don't know that I can recollect." "Oh yes, you can. The effort to do so will do you good--wake you out of this stupid sleepiness. Take yesterday: what did you have for breakfast?" "Yesterday? Well, I think they brought me a poached egg." "And a very good thing, too. What did you drink with it?" "Tea. I always take tea." "Who makes it?" "I do," said madame, turning her head to Mr. Tamlyn with a meaning smile. "I take my own tea from the same tea-pot." "Good. What did you take after that, Lady Jenkins?" "I dare say I had some beef-tea at eleven. Did I, Patty? I generally do have it." "Yes, dear Lady Jenkins; and delicious beef-tea it is, and it does you good. I should like Mr. Tamlyn to take a cup of it." "I don't mind if I do." Perhaps the answer was unexpected: but Madame St. Vincent rang the bell and ordered up a cup of the beef-tea. The beef-tea proved to be "all right," as he had observed of the medicine. Meanwhile he had continued his questions to his patient.