Angela's hands overflowed with their brilliant burden as she called aloud,
"Come in!" and he came with the very words she had expected: "Well, are
you ready?"
But they died on his lips, and it seemed to her, in the waning light, that
his face grew pale.
"Drop that stuff, quick, Mrs. May!"
He flung the words at her, and Angela, bewildered and amazed, threw down
the coloured leaves as if a tarantula hid among them.
"Have you got any ammonia?" Nick asked sharply.
"Yes."
"Go wash your hands in it while I use your telephone. Don't be frightened,
but that's poison-oak, and I want to prevent it from hurting you."
"Can it--kill me?" Her face quivered.
"No. And it shan't do you any harm if I can help it. But be quick as you
can. Keep your hands in the basin till I get what I'm sending out for."
Without another word Angela ran into the next room, and so to the bath.
As she poured ammonia into the marble basin, feeling a little faint, she
could hear Nick's voice at the telephone: "Send to the nearest drug store
for some gamgee tissue, a bundle of lint, and a pint bottle of lime-water.
This is a hurry call."
Angela's heart was thumping. It was horrible that there should be some one
in the world--a lurking, mysterious some one--who planned in secret to do
her dreadful harm.
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