He was poisoned by Philip Sheldon!"
"You must be mad!" gasped Valentine, in a faint voice.
For one moment of astonishment and incredulity he thought this man must
needs be a fool or a lunatic, so wildly improbable did the accusation
seem. But in the next instant the curtain was lifted, and he knew that
Philip Sheldon was a villain, and knew that he had never wholly trusted
him.
"Never until to-day have I told this secret," said the surgeon; "not even
to my wife."
"I thank you," answered Valentine, in the same faint voice; "with all my
heart, I thank you."
Yes, the curtain was lifted. This mysterious illness, this slow silent
decay of bloom and beauty, by a process inscrutable as the devilry of
medieval poisoner or Hecate-serving witch--this was murder. Murder! The
disease, which had hitherto been nameless, had found its name at last. It
was all clear now. Philip Sheldon's anxiety; the selection of an utterly
incompetent adviser; certain looks and tones that had for a moment
mystified him, and had been forgotten in the next, came back to him with
a strange distinctness, with all their hidden meaning made clear and
plain as the broad light of day.
But the motive? What motive could prompt the slow destruction of that
innocent life? A fortune was at stake, it is true; but that fortune, as
Valentine understood the business, depended on the life of Charlotte
Halliday.
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