Catherine got up again. She was, as she said, always practical, and she was always restless. This afternoon in particular, after the inconclusive wakefulness of the night before, she longed to map out plans, rules of conduct, a line to take about all these complications. Yet, since all her life she had been chary of emotion, apt to regard it as useless, if not dangerous, stuff to have on board; now, when it was certainly there, either through her will or in opposition to it, she found herself--she, the ready speaker--destitute of words to deal with it to Maud. And in her silent search for expression again she paced up and down the busy bee-travelled flower-beds. Then there came a crisper note--the sound of crunched gravel--and a dog-cart drew up at the front-door, some fifty yards only from where they sat. There was only one person in it, a young man, who dismounted and rang the bell, and stood at the pony's head waiting for it to be answered. But apparently the servants were drowsy too, as befitted Sunday afternoon, and after a pause he rang again. No definite process of reasoning went on through Catherine's mind, but somehow her heart sank. This was no caller, no one who would need entertainment; but there was something dimly familiar in that cart, and in the tradesman-like young man, that reminded her of medicines, of the time when the children had the measles. Yes; it was a man from the chemist's ... and next moment she knew why her heart sank. "I will see who it is," she said to Maud. "The servants seem to be asleep;" and she went across the grass to the front-door. She had a word with the man, who gave her a small package, neatly sealed. Then he touched his hat, mounted, and turned his horse. Catherine came back to where Maud was sitting. "It is directed to Thurso," she said, "and it is from the chemist in Windsor. Maud----" Maud understood; but she shook her head. "Oh, you can't open other people's things," she said--"you can't. Oh, Catherine, what are we to do?" Catherine sat down again, with the bottle--the shape of it was plain--in her hand. Then Maud spoke again. "But we must," she said. "Open it carefully, so that if it isn't what we think we can do it up again. Oh, I hate it all; it seems mean, but I don't care. I'll open it if you would rather not." Catherine seemed to think this unnecessary, and carefully broke the seals. There was a bottle of dark blue glass inside, with a red label of "Poison" on it. It was closed with a glass stopper, which she withdrew, and she smelled it. Then, paper and all, she passed it to Maud. Maud put the stopper back into the bottle, squeezed up the paper and string in which it had been wrapped into a tight ball, and threw it deep into the flower-bed. Then she went to the opening in the yew-hedge and flung the bottle itself into mid-stream.