WYLDER'S HAJVD.
97
minute — and give me a little wine or water — any-
thing."
"There ia the key. There's some wine in the press, I
think."
He tried to open it, but his hand shook. He saw his
sister look at him, and he flung the keys on the table rather
savagely, with, I dare say, a curse between his teeth.
Rachel took the key with a faint gleam of scorn on her
face, and brought out the wine in silence.
He took a tall-stemmed Venetian glass that stood upon
the cabinet, an antique decoration, and fijled it with sherry
— a strange revival of old service! How long was it since
lips had touched its brim before, and whose? Lovers',
maybe, and how? How long since that cold crystal had
glowed with the ripples of wine? This, at all events,
was its last service. It is an old legend of the Venetian
glass — its shivering at touch of poison; and there are
those of whom it is said, "the poison of asps is under their
lips."
"What's that?" ejaculated Rachel, with a sudden
shriek — that whispered shriek, so expressive and ghastly,
that you, perhaps, have once heard in your life — and her
very lips grew white.
"Hollo !" cried Lake. He was standing with his back
to the window, and sprang forward, as pale as she, and
grasped her, with a white leer that she never forgot, over
his shoulder, and the Venice glass was shivered on the
ground.
"Who's there?" he whispered.
And Rachel, in a whisper, ejaculated the awful name
that must not be taken in vain.
She sat down. She was looking at him with a wild,
stern stare, straight in the face, and he still holding her
arm, and close to her.
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