Then somebody else? Don't question, Rev had said, don't invite danger. Her skin crawled: Lolotte had told Maude that she was in the hall and the door was open. Sarah had begun to tell Lucien of Emile, she had begun to question and a little draft had crept across the room from the bedroom door, open barely enough to show a rim of blackness in the hall. So Lolotte -- or anybody -- could have listened, and that somebody could have already been supplied with the missing bottle of opium.

That was not reasonable either. The opium had disappeared before Emile's death and whoever shot him could not by any stretch of the imagination have foreseen Sarah's own doubts and suspicions -- and questions.

She began to doubt whether there had been in fact a lethal dose of opium in the cup. So suppose somebody only wished to frighten her, so she would leave Honotassa!

That made a certain amount of logic. Added to the argument was the fact that while she might have tasted the coffee if it had been still hot, she might even have drunk some of it, she wouldn't have taken enough to kill her, for she would have been warned by its taste.

No. It was merely an attempt to frighten her.

She wouldn't go back to New York as Maude suggested; she wouldn't run like a scared cat. But -- well, she'd be very careful.

She dressed and the accustomed routine restored to her a sense of normal everyday life.

But before she left her room she dug into her big moire bag, took out the envelope holding her marriage contract and the wax seal had been broken. So somebody else knew what would happen to her father's money if she died.