In thinking of it afterwards, with shuddering avoidance of the haunting memory that would come and overshadow her during many, many years of her life, she grew to believe that the powerful smell of the spilt brandy absolutely intoxicated her--an unconscious Rechabite in practice.

But something gave her a presence of mind and a courage not her own.

And though she learnt to think afterwards that she had acted unwisely, if not wrongly and wickedly, yet she marvelled, in recalling that time, how she could have then behaved as she did.

First of all she lifted herself up from her fascinated gaze at the dead man, and went to the staircase door, by which she had entered the study, and shut it softly.

Then she went back--looked again; took the brandy-bottle, and knelt down, and tried to pour some into the mouth; but this she found she could not do.