"There is a feeble chance of saving his life; but even should we succeed in doing so, his intellect will be irretrievably gone.

This is a sad truth, but I feel it my duty to inform you of it.

I will come again to-morrow." As the doctor left the room, Norbert threw himself into a chair, and clasped his hands round his head, which throbbed until it seemed as if it would burst.

For more than half an hour he sat motionless, and then started to his feet with a stifled cry; for he remembered the bottle into which he had poured the poison, and which had been left on the table.

Had any one drunk from it?
What had become of it?
The agony of his mind gave him the necessary strength to descend to the dining-room; but the bottle was not on the table, nor was it in its customary place in the cupboard.