“And I’m really anxious to save you from unnecessary annoyance.”

“Then I insist that you shall tell me,” she replied inconsequently. “I will not have you adopt that attitude towards me. Do you understand? I won’t have it! I’m not a Dresden shepherdess, and I won’t be treated like one — at any rate, by you. So there!”

I was in the seventh heaven of felicity.

“If you will have it, you have been poisoned.”

I told her of my suspicions, and how they had been confirmed by Yvette’s avowal. She shivered, and then stood up and came towards me.

“Do you mean to say that Carlotta Deschamps and my own maid have conspired together to poison me simply because I am going to sing in a certain piece at a certain theatre? It’s