'For _me_ you will, Adam--' she began.

'"_Will_," Clodagh?' I cried. 'You say "_will_"? there is not even the
slightest shadow of a probability--!'

'But why? There are still three weeks before the start. They say...'

She stopped, she stopped.

'They say what?'

Her voice dropped:

'That Peter takes atropine.'

Ah, I started then. She moved from the window, sat in a rocking-chair,
and turned the leaves of a book, without reading. We were silent, she
and I; I standing, looking at her, she drawing the thumb across the
leaf-edges, and beginning again, contemplatively. Then she laughed dryly
a little--a dry, mad laugh.

'Why did you start when I said that?' she asked, reading now at random.

'_I_! I did not start, Clodagh! What made you think that I started? I
did not start! Who told you, Clodagh, that Peters takes atropine?'

'He is my nephew: I should know. But don't look dumbfoundered in that
absurd fashion: I have no intention of poisoning him in order to see you
a multimillionaire, and a Peer of the Realm....'