Then they talked about it.

Veronica asked whether Elettra had complained that there were mice in her room, and whether some stupid servant, having a package of rat-poison at hand, had not stuck it under the chest of drawers, not even thinking of opening the paper.

Elettra was suspicious.
"At all events, Excellency," she said, "remember that you found it, and that it was carefully closed." Suddenly, as they were speaking together, Veronica's face changed, and she grasped the corner of the piece of furniture convulsively.

Though she had taken the poisoned lump from her cup in time to save her life, enough had been dissolved already to make her very ill.
Again there was dire confusion and fear in the Palazzo Macomer, by night.

It was a wholesale poisoning.