Meanwhile, Mary's uncle, the Rev. Mr. Stevens, of Fawley, having heard of his brother-in-law's illness, arrived on Friday, the 9th. To him Susan communicated the suspicious circumstances already mentioned, and he advised her to tell her master what she knew. Accordingly, at seven o'clock the following morning (Saturday, the 10th), Susan entered her master's bedroom, and broke to him the fearful news that his illness was suspected to be due to poison, administered to him by his own daughter. So soon as he had recovered from the first shock of this terrible intelligence, the old attorney asked her where Mary could have obtained the poison--he does not seem to have questioned the fact of its administration--and Susan could suggest no other source than Cranstoun. "Oh, that villain!" cried the sick man, realising in a flash the horrid plot of which he was the victim, "that ever he came to my house! I remember he mentioned a particular poison that they had in their country." Susan told him that Mr. Norton advised that Miss Blandy's papers be seized forthwith, but to this Mr. Blandy would not agree. "I never in all my life read a letter that came to my daughter," said the scrupulous old man; but he asked Susan to secure any of the powder she could find. Determined at once to satisfy himself of the truth, Mr. Blandy rose and went downstairs to breakfast. There was present at that meal, besides himself and Mary, one Robert Littleton, his clerk, who had returned the night before from a holiday in Warwickshire. The old man appeared to him "in great agony, and complained very much." Mary handed her father his tea in his "particular dish." He tasted it, and, fixing his eyes upon her, remarked that it had a bad, gritty taste, and asked if she had put anything into it. The girl trembled and changed countenance, muttering that it was made as usual; to hide her confusion she hurried from the room. Mr. Blandy poured his tea into "the cat's basin" and sent for a fresh supply. After breakfast, Mary asked Littleton what had become of the tea, and, being told, seemed to him much upset by the occurrence. When the old man had finished his meal, he went into the kitchen to shave. While there he observed to his daughter, in presence of Betty Binfield, "I had like to have been poisoned once," referring to an occasion when he and two friends drank something hurtful at the coffee house. "One of these gentlemen died immediately, the other is dead now," said he; "I have survived them both, and it is my fortune to be poisoned at last," and, looking "very hard" at her, he turned away.