The last paragraph seemed especially to interest him, and he read
it twice, the second time slowly, and emphasizing the word
"doctor."

"A doctor!" he repeated. "Do you see where that leads us? It may
explain several things. The girl was in good health until went
abroad with her uncle, and he is a medical man."

The eyes of Cuthbert grew wide with excitement.

"You mean poison!" he whispered. "Slow poison!"

"Beware libel," laughed Ford nervously, his own eyes lit with
excitement. "Suppose," he exclaimed, "he has been using arsenic? He
would have many opportunities, and it's colorless, tasteless; and
arsenic would account for her depression and melancholia. The time
when he must turn over her money is very near, and, suppose he has
spent the money, speculated with it, and lost it, or that he still
has it and wants to keep it? In three months she will be of age,
and he must make an accounting. The arsenic does not work fast
enough. So what does he do? To save himself from exposure, or to
keep the money, he throws her into this private sanatorium, to make
away with her."

Ford had been talking in an eager whisper. While he spoke his cigar
had ceased to burn, and to light it, from a vase on the mantel he
took a spill, one of those spirals of paper that in English hotels,
where the proprietor is of a frugal mind, are still used to prevent
extravagance in matches. Ford lit the spill at the coal fire, and
with his cigar puffed at the flame. As he did so the paper