Lettice shook her head. "No, sir, my mistress does not take anything of that sort, I am sure; we have nothing of the kind in the house. But Madame St. Vincent is for ever dosing her with brandy-and-water." "What?" shouted old Tamlyn. "I have said a long while, sir, that I thought you ought to know it; I've said so to the housemaid. I don't believe an hour hardly passes, day or night, but madame administers to her a drop of brandy-and-water. Half a wine-glass, maybe, or a full wine-glass, as the case may happen; and sometimes I know it's pretty strong." "That's it," said Dr. Knox quietly: and a curious smile crossed his face. Mr. Tamlyn sat down on the stool in consternation. "Brandy-and-water!" he repeated, more than once, "Perpetually dosed with brandy-and-water! And now, Lettice Lane, how is it you have not come here before to tell me of this?" "I did not come to tell you now, sir," returned Lettice. "Madame St. Vincent says that Lady Jenkins needs it: she seems to give it her for her good. It is only lately that I have doubted whether it can be right. I have not liked to say anything: servants don't care to interfere. Ten times a-day she will give her these drops of cold brandy-and-water: and I know she gets up for the same purpose once or twice in the night." "Does Lady Jenkins take it without remonstrance?" asked Dr. Knox, speaking for the first time. "She does, sir, now. At first she did not. Many a time I have heard my lady say, 'Do you think so much brandy can be good for me, Patty? I feel so dull after it,' and Madame St. Vincent has replied, that it is the only thing that can get her strength back and bring her round." "The jade!" spoke Dr. Knox, between his teeth. "And to assure us both that all the old lady took was a drop of it weak twice a-day at her meals! Lettice Lane," he added aloud, and there was a great sternness in his tone, "you are to blame for not having spoken of this. A little longer silence, and it might have cost your mistress her life." And Lettice went out in contrition. "What can the woman's motive be, for thus dosing her into stupidity?" spoke the one doctor to the other when they were shut in together. "_That_: the dosing her into it," said Dr. Knox. "But the motive, Arnold?--the reason? She must have had a motive." "That remains to be found out." It turned out to be too true. The culprit was Madame St. Vincent. She had been administering these constant doses of brandy-and-water for months. Not giving enough at a time to put Lady Jenkins into a state of intoxication; only to reduce her to a chronic state of semi-stupidity. Tod called me, as I tell you, a muff: first for not knowing Madame St. Vincent; and next for thinking to screen her. Of course this revelation of Lettice Lane's had put a new complexion upon things. I left the matter with Tod, and he told the doctors at once: Madame St. Vincent was, or used to be, Martha Jane Pell, own sister to Captain Collinson the false. III.