Two seconds later his last hope departed as she turned from the closet and he beheld in her hands a quart bottle containing what appeared to be a section of grassy swamp immersed in a cloudy brown liquor.

He stepped back, grave suspicion in his glance.
"What IS that ?" he asked, in a hard voice.
Mrs.Schofield smiled upon him.

"It's nothing," she said.

"That is, it's nothing you'll mind at all.

It's just so you won't be so nervous." "I'm not nervous." "You don't think so, of course, dear," she returned, and, as she spoke, she poured some of the brown liquor into a tablespoon.