And as the months went by she would have shuddered had she known the dark and sinister thoughts which were beginning to gather in her stepmother’s mind.
Annabel had found the bringing about of two deaths so easy that she was soon contemplating a third. But there must be no poisoning this time. The Godalming doctor was very different from the Warbury one. He was a stern, very shrewd-looking man, with eyes which she always imagined were trying to pierce her through and through.
A dour old bachelor, he was not in the slightest degree impressed by her good looks. In fact, she rather thought he disapproved of the baronet’s second marriage. He had been a cousin of the first wife, and very attached to her. So he seemed now to consider her two children to be under his special care and often came
