There was neither fear nor shame in her words; it was the outspoken instinct of the animal he had been rearing; he was convinced and appalled by it.

“I am returning to San Jose at once,” he said gravely.  “You shall go with me—­for the present!  Get yourself ready!”

He took her to San Jose, and temporarily to the house of a patient,—­a widow lady,—­while he tried, alone, to grapple with the problem that now confronted him.  But that problem became more complicated at the end of the third day, by Liberty Jones falling suddenly and alarmingly ill.  The symptoms were so grave that the doctor, in his anxiety, called in a brother physician in consultation.  When the examination was over, the two men withdrew and stared at each other.

“Of course there is no doubt that the symptoms all point to slow arsenical poisoning,” said the consulting doctor.

“Yes,” said Ruysdael quickly, “yet it is utterly inexplicable, both as to motive and opportunity.”

“Humph!” said the other grimly, “young ladies take arsenic in minute doses to improve the complexion and promote tissue, forgetting that the effects are cumulative when they stop suddenly.  Your young friend has ‘sworn off’ too quickly.”

“But it is impossible,” said Doctor Ruysdael impatiently.  “She is a mere child—­a country girl—­ignorant of such habits.”

“Humph! the peasants in the Tyrol try it on themselves after noticing the effect on the coats of cattle.”

Doctor Ruysdael started.  A recollection of the sleek draught horse flashed upon him.  He rose and hastily re-entered the patient’s room.  In a few moments he returned.  “Do you think I could remove her at once to the mountains?” he said gravely.

“Yes, with care and a return to graduated doses of the same poison; you know it’s the only remedy just now,” answered the other.

By noon the next day the doctor and his patient had returned to the cabin, but Ruysdael himself carried the helpless Liberty Jones to the spring and deposited her gently beside it.  “You may drink now,” he said gravely.

The girl did so eagerly, apparently imbibing new strength from the sparkling water.  The doctor meanwhile coolly filled a phial from the same source, and made a hasty test of the contents by the aid of some other phials from his case.  The result seemed to satisfy him.  Then he said gravely: 

“And this is the spring you had discovered?”

The girl nodded.

“And you and the cattle have daily used it?”

She nodded again wonderingly.  Then she caught his hand appealingly.

“You won’t send me away?”

He smiled oddly as he glanced from the waters of the hill to the brimming eyes.  “No.”

“No-r,” tremulously, “go away—­yourself?”

The doctor looked this time only into her eyes.  There was a tremendous idea in his own, which seemed in some way to have solved that dreadful problem.