"Tituba--my woman servant, Tituba--and is she of this diabolical confederacy?" muttered the old man, while a sensation of horror crept over him. "Am I beset with fiends?" Barbara arose from the earth, held up the cone of scarlet berries in the sun, while the bulb was clasped in her hand, with the green leaves falling over it. "How can poisonous things be so beautiful?" she said, with a sigh. "Who would believe that one of these glowing drops could take a human life?" "You know it to be deadly, then?" questioned the old man. His voice was so hoarse that Barbara looked him earnestly in the face. "Yes," she answered, thoughtfully, "I know all its good and all its evil qualities. Like many other things in life it can both cure and kill." As she spoke, Barbara cut away the leaves and the red cone with her poignard, dropping the root into her basket. Then she put away the stiletto somewhere in the folds of her dress, and dashed off the soil that clung to her white hands. "You would speak with me, I think?" she said, a little anxiously. "She knows that already," thought the old man, feeding his suspicions with every word Barbara Stafford uttered: but he only said: "Lady, what have you in common with the young man who sat with you a few minutes ago, under the oak yonder?" Barbara smiled. These words were a relief to her. She had expected something more important by his strange manner. "Oh, Mr. Lovel--he joined me on the shore where I went in search of a shrub I wanted for old Tituba who has a bad cough. I hope his wish to join me has not encroached on pleasanter duties." "And he too?" muttered the old man--"he too?" Barbara listened keenly, but the words escaped her. Her silence, however, was impressive. "Let us go forward to the oak yonder," he said, pointing the way with his staff. Barbara turned, without a word, and walked slowly toward the oak. They sat down together, the old man and the strange woman--she with a calm look of preparation; he stern and pale, but hesitating how to begin. Her dignity and the grave attention with which she waited took away all his self-possession. "You would speak with me," Barbara said, at length: "you look agitated. Surely nothing has gone amiss since I left the house!" The old man's face changed, and his voice trembled as he spoke.