"No, Miss Ada--I mean Mrs Norton--_not yet--not yet_! but unless some one interferes there soon will be! Oh, 'm! I didn't care to go to the Rectory, for I knew that they wouldn't believe me there! but I'm afraid something dreadful will happen to my poor dear lady! I have come to you because you are her cousin, and I know you loved her, though things have gone so crooked since. But what shall we do, 'm? for since that last time when my lady met Mr Norton in the wood, and Sir Murray caught them--" Jane ceased, for Ada Norton leaped to her feet as if some galvanic shock had passed through her frame. "Oh, what am I saying, ma'am? I didn't think that you'd take it in that way, nor yet that you wouldn't know of it. It was nothing, ma'am; only Sir Murray was telling my lady of it; and she said that they met by accident, and that almost all her words to him were to send her love to you, ma'am." "It was, then, upon that occasion?" said Ada Norton, in agitated tones. "Yes, 'm; and I was in the dressing-room, and heard all. Not that Sir Murray spoke angrily, but in a curious, sneering tone that frightens my lady; and ever since then she's been ill, and taking medicine; and--oh, 'm!--you would not get me into trouble for trying to do what's right by my lady?" "No--no," said Ada, who was trying to recall her husband's words when he had told her of his last meeting with Lady Gernon, for he had said nothing respecting the coming of Sir Murray. "Well, ma'am," sobbed Jane, "since then"--she sank her voice into a whisper, and sent a thrill of horror through Ada Norton as she spoke--"since then, ma'am, I'm sure Sir Murray has been trying to poison her!" "Poison my cousin, Lady Gernon?" exclaimed Ada. "Nonsense! Absurd! Jane, you are mad!" "I hope I am, ma'am, about that--indeed I do!" cried Jane, earnestly. "But what have you seen? What do you know?" exclaimed Mrs Norton. "I haven't seen anything, ma'am, except Sir Murray coming sometimes out of the dressing-room, where the medicine's kept; and I don't know anything except that my lady's medicine always tastes different, and looks different, when it's been in the dressing-room a day or two; and every week it turns a darker colour, and tastes stronger than it did the week before. And besides all that, though Sir Murray smiles, and pretends to talk pleasant to the poor dear, suffering angel, than whom a better woman never lived, he hates her dreadfully, and more and more every day." "And how long has this been going on?" said Mrs Norton, with a faint smile. "Weeks now, ma'am," said Jane. "But I see you don't believe me."