"Indeed! How?" Mr. Ingelow produced a little white paper from his vest pocket. "You see this powder?" holding it up. "Drop it into the tea-pot this evening, and don't drink any of the tea." The woman shrunk a little. "I'm almost afraid, Mr. Ingelow. I don't like drugging. They're old and feeble; I daren't do it." "You must do it," Hugh Ingelow said, sternly. "I tell you there is no danger. Do you take me for a murderer?" "No; but there might be a mistake." "There is none. The powder is an opiate; it will harm no one. They will go to sleep a little earlier, and sleep a little longer and a little sounder than usual--that is all." Mrs. Sharpe took the paper, but with evident reluctance. "I tell you it is all right," reiterated Hugh Ingelow; "no one is to be murdered but the dogs. Doctor Oleander will have no scruple about drugging Miss Dane on Friday night, you will see. The choice lies between her and them. Are you going to fail me at the last, Sarah?" sternly. "No," said the woman. She dropped the little package in her pocket, and looked him firmly in the face. "I'll do it, Mr. Ingelow. And then?" "And then the dogs will be dead, and the people asleep, before ten o'clock. At ten I'll be at the gate; a vehicle will be waiting down below in the clump of cedars. You will open the house door and the garden gate, and let me in. Before another day we'll be in the city." "So be it. And now," said Mrs. Sharpe, drawing her shawl around her, "I must go. I came to walk off a bad headache; I find it is gone, so I had better return." "Good-bye, and God speed you!" said Hugh Ingelow. Mrs. Sharpe walked back to the house. Old Peter admitted her, and all three were solicitous about her headache. "Much better," Mrs. Sharpe said, quietly. "I knew that walk would cure it." All the rest of the afternoon she helped old Sally to manufacture pies. Tea-time came, and, ever willing, she volunteered to make the tea. "Do so," said old Sally. "I can't abear to take my hands out o' dough when they're into it." The tea was made, the supper-table set, and then Mrs. Sharpe begged permission to make herself a cup of coffee. "I find it better for my head than tea. It will cure me quite, I know." Mrs. Oleander assented, and the coffee was made. The quartet sat down to supper, and Susan Sharpe felt an inward quaking as she watched them drink the tea. Mrs. Oleander complained that it was weak; Sally said it must have boiled, it had such a nasty taste; but they drank it for all that. Supper over, Mrs. Sharpe brought up her patient's. But she carried her coffee, and left the doctored tea behind. "We are to escape to-night," she said to Mollie. "Be ready. We will start at ten. Don't ask me to explain now. I feel nervous and am going down." Before an hour had elapsed the drug began its work. Mrs. Oleander nodded over her knitting; Sally was drowsy over her dishes; Peter yawned audibly before the fire.