During dinner Lady Chutny enquired whether her orders regarding the three women had been attended to, and if they had left the house. The crafty butler pretended not to understand the meaning of her words. She could not speak the language, and her ayah, who had always acted as interpreter, whenever she wished to issue her commands personally, had been, owing to her hasty retreat, left behind at the Capital. Boiling with rage at being, as it were, set at defiance in her own house and by her own domestics, fatigued with her journey, and alarmed at the prospect of being in the power of Captain Snaffle, also dreading the disclosures he might make, it was no wonder that she sought the quiet of her own chamber much earlier than was her usual custom. For several hours she turned uneasily on her couch, her mind disturbed by conflicting doubts and fears, when a strange attendant entered, bearing a large goblet of sherbet, which had been rendered deliciously cool by being placed for several hours in a mixture of saltpetre and glauber salts. This was her favourite evening beverage, which, in her now heated and excited state was very acceptable. Motioning the woman to place it on the teapoy, near her pillow, she was about to give her further instructions, when she noticed that she was a stranger, not from her features, for they were concealed beneath the folds of her sarree, which had been thrown completely over her head, revealing only a small portion of the lower part of her face, but from her general appearance. Finding that she was not understood, she stretched forth her hand for the goblet and took a long draught, unconscious of the piercing dark eyes that gleamed down upon her with jealous hatred and fiendish pleasure from behind the silken sarree of her new attendant, as she took from her hand the half-emptied goblet, which, after placing on the teapoy, she quickly left the room. There was something suspicious about the action of the woman, but Lady Chutny was too much occupied with her own thoughts to notice it at the time, and soon after sank into a doze from which she started in affright, as if from some dreadful dream, only to fall into another. This occurred several times. At length, after finishing the remainder of the sherbet, she dropped into a deep sleep. The sun was high in the heavens when she again awoke. A burning fever consumed her, and delirium had fastened on her with fearful spasmodic and excruciating pains internally. She endeavored to rise, but fainted in so doing. She shrieked wildly for assistance, but none heeded her cries. For hours she was thus, left alone, the pains increasing, and her brain in a constant whirl. Again she slept, how long she knew not. When, on awaking, she found the same attendant who had waited on her the previous evening, standing at her bedside. She had brought food, of which her ladyship partook slightly but eagerly, and called for tea, which was handed her.