'THE APPEARANCE OF THE NEXT WITNESS CREATED A MARKED SENSATION IN 
 THE COURT." [See p. 114.]
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 2V Noud. 
 
 BY WILKIE COLLINS, 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 'THE MOONSTONE," "ARMADALE," "THE WOMAN IN WHITE, 
 "BASIL," "THE DEAD SECRET," "ANTONINA," &c. 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 
 
 FRANKLIN SQUARE. 
 1875. '
 
 WlLKIE COLLINS'S NOVELS. 
 
 HARPER'S ILLUSTRATED LIBRARY EDITION, 
 
 ISmo, Cloth, $1 50 per Volume. 
 
 ARMADALE. ' MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 BASIL. POOR MISS FINCII. 
 
 HIDE-AND-SEEK, -f- THE MOONSTONE. I 
 
 THE NEW MA GDALEN^ THE WOMAN IN 
 
 NO NAME. ' THE DEAD SECRET. ' 
 
 QUEEN OF HEARTS. ' AFTER DARK, and Other Storia. 
 
 MY MISCELLANIES. ANTONINA. 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK.
 
 Lstt 
 
 932467
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 PARADISE LOST. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 THE BRIDE'S MISTAKE. 
 
 "FoR after this manner in the old time the holy women 
 also who trusted in God adorned themselves, being in sub- 
 jection unto their own husbands ; even as Sarah obeyed 
 Abraham, calling him lord ; whose daughters ye are as long 
 as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement." 
 
 Concluding the Marriage Service of the Church of England 
 in those well-known words, my uncle Starkweather shut up 
 his book, and looked at me across the altar rails with a hearty 
 expression of interest on his broad, red face. At the same time 
 my aunt, Mrs. Starkweather, standing by my side, tapped 
 me smartly on the shoulder, and said, 
 
 " Valeria, you are married !" 
 
 Where were my thoughts ? What had become of my at- 
 tention? I was too bewildered to know. I started and 
 looked at my new husband. He seemed to be almost as 
 much bewildered as I was. . The same thought had, as I be- 
 lieve, occurred to us both at the same moment. Was it real- 
 ly possible in spite of his mother's opposition to our mar- 
 riage that we were Man and Wife ? My aunt Starkweather 
 settled the question by a second tap on my shoulder. 
 
 " Take his arm !" she whispered, in the tone of a woman 
 who had lost all patience with me. 
 
 I took his arm. 
 
 "Follow your unele." 
 
 A _
 
 10 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 Holding fast by my husband's arm, I followed my uncle 
 and the curate who had assisted him at the marriage. 
 
 The two clergymen led us into the vestry. The church 
 was in one of the dreary quarters of London, situated between 
 the City and the West End; the day was dull; the atmos- 
 phere was heavy and damp. We were a melancholy little 
 wedding party, worthy of the dreary neighborhood and the 
 dull day. No relatives or friends of my husband's were 
 present ; his family, as ITiave already hinted, disapproved of 
 his marriage. Except my uncle and my aunt, no other rela- 
 tions appeared on my side. I had lost both my parents, and 
 I had but few friends. My dear father's faithful old clerk, 
 Benjamin, attended the wedding to "give me away," as the 
 phrase is. He had known me from a child, and, in my for- 
 lorn position, he was as good as a father to rne. 
 
 The last ceremony left to be performed was, as usual, the 
 signing of the marriage register. In the confusion of the 
 moment (and in the absence of any inforanation to guide me) 
 I committed a mistake ominous, in my aunt Starkweather's 
 opinion, of evil to come. I signed my married instead of my 
 maiden name. 
 
 " What !" cried my uncle, in his loudest and cheeriest 
 tones, "you have forgotten your own name already? Well, 
 well ! let us hope you will never repent parting with it so 
 readily. Try again, Valeria try again." 
 
 With trembling fingers I struck the pen through my first 
 effort, and wrote my maiden name, very badly indeed, as 
 follows: 
 
 When it came to my husband's turn I noticed, with sur- 
 prise, that his hand trembled too, and that he produced a 
 very poor specimen of his customary signature : 
 
 My aunt, on being requested to sign, complied under pro- 
 test. " A bad beginning !" she said, pointing to my first
 
 THK LAW AND THE LADY. 11 
 
 unfortunate signature with the feather end of her pen. " I 
 hope, my dear, you may not live to regret it." 
 
 Kven then, in the days of my ignorance and my innocence, 
 that curious outbreak of my aunt's superstition produced a 
 certain uneasy sensation in my mind. It was a consolation 
 to me to feel the reassuring pressure of my husband's hand. 
 It was an indescribable relief to hear my uncle's hearty voice 
 wiping me a happy life at parting. The good man had left 
 his north-country Vicarage (my home since the deatli of my 
 parents) expressly to read the service at my marriage; and 
 he and my aunt had arranged to return by the mid-day train. 
 He folded me in his great strong arms, and he gave me a 
 kiss which must certainly have been heard by the idlers wait- 
 ing for the bride and bridegroom outside the church door. 
 
 "I wish you health and happiness, my love, with all my 
 heart. You are old enough to choose for yourself, and no 
 offense, Mr. WoodvHle, you and I are new friends and I 
 pray God, Valeria, ^t may turn out that you have chosen 
 well. Our house will be dreary enough without you; but I 
 don't complain, my dear. On the contrary, if this change in 
 your life makes you happier, I rejoice. Come, come ! don't 
 cry, or you will set your aunt off and it's no joke at her 
 time of life. Besides, crying will spoil your beauty. Dry 
 your eyes and look in the glass there, and you will see that 
 I am right. Good-by, child and God bless you !" 
 
 He tucked my aunt under his arm, and hurried out. My 
 heart sank a little, dearly as I loved my husband, when I 
 had seen the last of the true friend and protector of my maid- 
 en days. 
 
 The parting with old Benjamin came next. "I wish you 
 well, my dear; don't forget me," was all he said. But the 
 old days at home came back on me at those few words. Ben- 
 jamin always dined with us on Sundays in my father's time, 
 and always brought some little present with him for his mas- 
 ter's child. I was very near to "spoiling my beauty" (as 
 my uncle had put it) when I offered the old man my cheek 
 to kiss, and heard him sigh to himself, as if he too were not 
 quite hopeful about my future life. 
 
 My husband's voice roused me, and turned my mind to 
 happier thoughts. 
 
 " Shall we go, Valeria ?" he asked. 
 
 I stopped him on our way out to take advantage of my
 
 12 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 uncle's advice; in other words, to see how I looked in the 
 glass over the vestry fire-place. 
 
 What does the glass show me ? 
 
 The glass shows a tall and slender young woman of three- 
 and-twenty years of age. She is not at all the sort of person 
 who attracts attention in the street, seeing that she fails to 
 exhibit the popular yellow hair and the popular painted 
 cheeks. Her hair is black ; dressed, in these later days (as 
 it was dressed years since to please her father), in broad rip- 
 ples drawn back from the forehead, and gathered into a sim- 
 ple knot behind (like the hair of the Venus de Medicis),so as 
 to show the neck beneath. Her complexion is pale : except 
 in moments of violent agitation there is no color to be seen 
 in her face. Her eyes are of so dark a blue that they are 
 generally mistaken for black. Her eyebrows are well enough 
 in form, but they are too dark and too strongly marked. Her 
 nose just inclines towai'd the aquiline bend, and is considered 
 a little too large by persons difficult to please in the matter 
 of noses. The mouth, her best feature, is very delicately 
 shaped, and is capable of presenting great varieties of ex- 
 pression. As to the face in general, it is too narrow and too 
 long at the lower part, too broad and too low in the higher 
 regions of the eyes and the head. The whole picture, as re- 
 flected in the glass, represents a woman of some elegance, 
 rather too pale, and rather too sedate and serious in her mo- 
 ments of silence and repose in short, a person who fails to 
 strike the ordinary observer at first sight, but who gains in 
 general estimation on a second, and sometimes on a third 
 view. As for her dress, it studiously conceals, instead of 
 proclaiming, that she has been married that morning. She 
 wears a gray cashmere tunic trimmed with gray silk, and 
 having a skirt of the same material and color beneath it. 
 On her head is a bonnet to match, relieved by a quilling of 
 white muslin, with one deep red rose, as a morsel of positive 
 color, to complete the eifect of the whole dress. 
 
 Have I succeeded or failed in describing the picture of 
 myself which I see in the glass ? It is not for me to say. I 
 have done my best to keep clear of the two vanities the 
 vanity of depreciating and the vanity of praising my own 
 personal appearance. For the rest, well written or badly 
 written, thank Heaven it is done !
 
 THE LAW AM) TIIK I.ADV. 1 :! 
 
 And whom do I see in the glass standing by ray side '? 
 
 I see a man who is not quite so tall as I am, and who has 
 the misfortune of looking older than his years. His forehead 
 is prematurely bald. His big chestnut-colored beard and his 
 long overhanging mustache are prematurely streaked with 
 gray. He has the color in the face which my face wants, 
 and the firmness in his figure which my figure wants. He 
 looks at me with the tenderest and gentlest eyes (of a light 
 brown) that I ever saw in the countenance of a man. His 
 smile is rare and sweet; his manner, perfectly quiet and re- 
 tiring, has yet a latent persuasiveness in it which is (to wom- 
 en) irresistibly winning. He just halts a little in his walk, 
 from the effect of an injury received in past years, when he 
 was a soldier serving in India, and he carries a thick bamboo 
 cane, with a curious crutch handle (an old favorite), to help 
 himself along whenever he gets on his feet, in doors or out. 
 With this one little drawback (if it is a drawback), there is 
 nothing infirm or old or awkward about him ; his slight limp 
 when he walks has (perhaps to my partial eyes) a certain 
 quaint grace of its own, which is pleasanter to see than the 
 unrestrained activity of other men. And last and best of all, 
 I love him ! I love him ! I love him ! And there is an end 
 of my portrait of my husband on our wedding-day. 
 
 The glass has told me all I want to know. We leave the 
 vestry at last. 
 
 The sky, cloudy since the morning, has darkened while we 
 have been in the church, and the rain is beginning to fall 
 heavily. The idlers outside stare at us grimly under their 
 umbrellas as we pass through their ranks and hasten into our 
 carriage. No cheering; no sunshine; no flowers strewn in 
 our path ; no grand breakfast ; no genial speeches ; no bride- 
 maids; no father's or mother's blessing. A dreary wedding 
 there is no denying it and (if Aunt Starkweather is right) 
 a bad beginning as well ! 
 
 A covpe has been reserved for ns at the railway station. 
 The attentive porter, on the lookout for his fee, pulls down 
 the blinds over the side windows of the carriage, and shuts 
 out all prying eyes in that way. Alter what seems to be an 
 interminable delay the train starts. My husband winds his 
 arm round me. " At last !'' he whispers, with love in his eyes 
 that no words can utter, and presses me to him gently. 
 ,AIy arm steals round his neck; my eyes answer hi-
 
 14 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 Our lips meet in the first long, lingering kiss of our married 
 life. 
 
 Oh, what recollections of that journey rise in me as I write ! 
 Let me dry my eyes, and shut up my paper for the day. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 THE BRIDE'S THOUGHTS. 
 
 WE had been traveling for a little more than an hour 
 when a change passed insensibly over us both. 
 
 Still sitting close together, with my hand in his, with my 
 head on his shoulder, little by little we fell insensibly into si- 
 lence. Had we already exhausted the narrow yet eloquent 
 vocabulary of love ? Or had we determined by unexpressed 
 consent, after enjoying the luxury of passion that speaks, to 
 try the deeper and finer rapture of passion that thinks? I 
 can hardly determine ; I only know that a time came when, 
 under some strange influence, our lips were closed toward 
 each other. We traveled along, each of us absorbed in our 
 own reverie. Was he thinking exclusively of me as I was 
 thinking exclusively of him ? Before the journey's end I had 
 my doubts; at a little later time I knew for certain that his 
 thoughts, wandering far away from his young wife, were all 
 turned inward on his own unhappy self 
 
 For me the secret pleasure of filling my mind with him, 
 while I felt him by my side, was a luxury in itself. 
 
 I pictured in my thoughts our first meeting in the neigh- 
 borhood of my uncle's house. 
 
 Our famous north-country trout stream wound its flashing 
 and foaming way through a ravine in the rocky moor-land. 
 It was a windy, shadowy evening. A heavily clouded sunset 
 lay low and red in the west. A solitary angler stood cast- 
 ing his fly at a turn in the stream where the backwater lay 
 still and deep under an overhanging bank. A girl (myself) 
 standing on the bank, invisible to the fisherman beneath^ 
 waited eagerly to see the trout rise. 
 
 The moment came ; the fish took the fly. 
 
 Sometimes on the little level strip of sand at the foot of 
 the bank, sometimes (when the. stream turned again) in the 
 shallower water rushing over its rocky bed, the angler fol-
 
 TIIK LAW AND THE LADY. 15 
 
 lowed the captured trout, now letting the line run out, and 
 now winding it in again, in the difficult and delicate process 
 of "playing" the fish. Along the bank I followed to watch 
 the contest of skill and cunning between the man and the 
 trout. I had lived long enough with my uncle Starkweath- 
 er to catch some of his enthusiasm for field sports, and to 
 learn something, especially, of the angler's art. Still follow- 
 ing the stranger, with my eyes intently fixed on every move- 
 ment of his rod and line, and with not so much as a chance 
 fragment of my attention to spare for the rough path along 
 which I was walking, I stepped by chance on the loose over- 
 hanging earth at the edge of the bank, and fell into the stream 
 in an instant. 
 
 The distance was trifling, the water was shallow, the bed 
 of the river was (fortunately for me) of sand. Beyond the 
 fright and the wetting I had nothing to complain of. In a 
 lew moments I was out of the water and up again, very much 
 ashamed of myself, on the firm ground. Short as the inter- 
 val was, it proved long enough to favor the escape of the 
 fish. The angler had heard my first instinctive cry of alarm, 
 had turned, and had thrown aside his rod to help me. We 
 confronted each other for the first time, I on the bank and he 
 in the shallow water below. Our eyes encountered, and I 
 verily believe our hearts encountered at the same moment. 
 This I know for certain, we forgot our breeding as lady and 
 gentleman : we looked at each other in barbarous silence. 
 
 I was the first to recover myself. What did I say to him? 
 
 I said something about my not being hurt, and then some- 
 thing more, urging him to run back and try if he might not 
 yet recover the fish. 
 
 He weivt back unwillingly. He returned to me of course 
 without the fish. Knowing how bitterly disappointed my 
 uncle would have been in his place, I apologized Very ear- 
 nestly. In my eagerness to make atonement, I even offered 
 to show him a spot where he might try again, lower down 
 the stream. 
 
 He would not hear of it; he entreated me to go home and 
 change my wet dress. I cared nothing for the wetting, but 
 I obeyed him without knowing why. 
 
 He walked with me. My way back to the Vicarage was 
 his way back to the inn. lie had come to our parts, he told 
 me, for the quiet and retirement as much as tor the fishing.
 
 16 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 He had noticed me once or twice from the window of his room 
 at the inn. He asked ^f I were not the vicar's daughter. 
 
 I set him right. I told him that the vicar had married my 
 mother's sister, and that the two had been father and mother 
 to me since the death of my parents. He asked if he might 
 venture to call on Doctor Starkweather the next day, men- 
 tioning the name of a friend of his, with whom he believed 
 the vicar to be acquainted. I invited him to visit us, as if it 
 had been my house; I was spell-bound under h^g eyes and 
 under his voice. I had fancied, honestly fancied, myself to 
 have been in love often and often before this time. Never 
 in any other man's company had I felt as I now felt in the 
 presence of this man. Night seemed to fall suddenly over 
 the evening landscape when he left me. I leaned against the 
 Vicarage gate. I could not breathe, I could not think ; my 
 heart fluttered as if it would fly out of my bosom and all 
 this for a stranger ! I burned with shame ; but oh, in spite 
 of it all, I was so happy ! 
 
 And now, when little more than a few weeks had passed 
 since that first meeting, I had him by my side ; he was mine 
 for life ! I lifted my head from his bosom to look at him. I 
 was like a child with a new toy I wanted to make sure that 
 he was really my own. 
 
 He never noticed the action ; he never moved in his corner 
 of the carriage. Was he deep in his own thoughts ? and were 
 they thoughts of Me? 
 
 I laid down my hoad again softly, so as not to disturb him. 
 My thoughts wandered backward once more, and showed 
 me another picture in the golden gallery of the past. 
 
 The garden at the Vicarage formed the new scene. The 
 time was night. We had met together in secret. We were 
 walking slowly to and fro, out of sight of the house, now in 
 the shadowy paths of the shrubbery, now in the lovely moon- 
 light on the open lawn. 
 
 We had long since owned our love, and devoted our lives 
 to each other. Already our interests were one ; already we 
 shared the pleasures and the pains of life. I had gone out 
 to meet him that night with a heavy heart, to seek comfort 
 in his presence, and to find encouragement in his voice. He 
 noticed that I sighed when he first took me in his arms, and 
 he gently turned my head toward the moonlight to read my
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 17 
 
 trouble in my face. How often he had read my happiness 
 there in the earlier days of our love ! t 
 
 "You bring bad news, my angel," he said, lifting my hair 
 tenderly from my forehead as he spoke. "I see the lines 
 here which tell me of anxiety and distress. I almost wish I 
 loved yon less dearly, Valeria." 
 
 "Whyf 1 
 
 " I might give you back yonr freedom. I have only to leave 
 this place, and your uncle would be satisfied, and you would 
 be relieved from all the cares that are pressing on you now." 
 
 " Don't speak of it, Eustace ! If you want me to forget 
 my cares, say you love me more dearly than ever." 
 
 He said it in a kiss. We had a moment of exquisite for- 
 
 getfulness of the hard ways of life a moment of delicious 
 
 absorption in each other. I came back to realities fortified 
 
 and composed, rewarded for all that I had gone through, 
 
 ready to go through it all over again for another kiss. 
 
 I Only give a woman love, and there is nothing she will not 
 
 \ venture, suffer, and do. 
 
 v No, they have done with objecting. They have remem- 
 bered at last that I am of age, and that I can choose for my- 
 self. They have been pleading with me, Eustace, to give 
 you up. My aunt, whom I thought rather a hard woman, 
 has been crying for the first time in my experience of her. 
 My uncle, always kind and good to me, has been kinder and 
 better than ever. He has told me that if I persist in be- 
 coming your wife, I shall not*be deserted on my wedding- 
 d^. Wherever we may marry, he will be there to read the 
 service, and my aunt will go to the church with me. But he 
 entreats me to consider seriously what I am doing to con- 
 sent to a separation from you for a time to consult other 
 people on my position toward you, if I am not satisfied with 
 his opinion. Oh, my darling, they are as anxious to part us 
 as if you were the worst instead of the best of men!" 
 
 " lias any thing happened since yesterday to increase their 
 distrust of me?" he asked. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 " You remember referring my uncle to a friend of yours 
 and of hi 
 
 " Yes. To Major Fitz-David." 
 
 "My uncte has written to Major Fit/.-David."
 
 18 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 He pronounced that one word in a tone so utterly unlike 
 his natural tone that his voice sounded quite strange to me. 
 
 " You won't be angry, Eustace, if I tell you ?" I said. " My 
 uncle, as I understood him, had several motives for writing 
 to the major. One of them was to inquire if he knew your 
 mother's address." 
 
 Eustace suddenly stood still. 
 
 I paused at the same moment, feeling that I could venture 
 no farther without the risk of offending him. 
 
 To speak the truth, his conduct, when he first mentioned 
 our engagement to my uncle, had been (so far as appearances 
 went) a little flighty and strange. The vicar had naturally 
 questioned him about his family. He had answered that his 
 father was dead ; and he had consented, though not very 
 readily, to announce his contemplated marriage to his mother. 
 Informing us that she too lived in the country, he had gone 
 to see her, without more particularly mentioning her address. 
 In two days he had returned to the Vicarage with a very 
 startling message. His mother intended no disrespect to. me 
 or my relatives, but she disapproved so absolutely of her 
 son's marriage that she (and the members of her family, who 
 all agreed with her) would refuse to be present at the cere- 
 mony, if Mr.Woodville persisted in keeping his engagement 
 with Dr. Starkweather's niece. Being asked to explain this 
 extraordinary communication, Eustace had told us that his 
 mother and his sisters were Jbent on his marrying another 
 lady, and that they were bitterly mortified and disappointed 
 by his choosing a stranger to the family. This explanation 
 was enough for me ; it implied, so far as I was concerned, a 
 compliment to my superior influence over Eustace, which a 
 woman always receives with pleasure. But it failed to sat- 
 isfy my uncle and my aunt. The vicar expressed to Mr. 
 Woodville a wish to write to his mother, or to see her, on 
 the subject of her strange message. Eustace obstinately de- 
 clined to mention his mother's address, on the ground that 
 the vicar's interference would be utterly useless. My uncle 
 at once drew the conclusion that the mystery about the ad- 
 dress indicated something wrong. He refused to favor Mr. 
 Woodville's renewed proposal for my hand, and he wrote tha 
 same day to make inquiries of Mr. Woodville's reference and 
 of his own friend Major Fitz-Pavid.
 
 I UK LAW AND TIIK LADY. 10 
 
 Under such circumstances as these, to speak of my uncle's 
 motives was to venture on very delicate ground. Eustace 
 relieved me from further embarrassment by asking a question 
 to which I could easily reply. 
 
 "Has your uncle received any answer from Major Fitz- 
 David ?" he inquired. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "Were you allowed to read it?" His voice sank as he 
 said those words; his face betrayed a sudden anxiety which 
 it pained me to see. 
 
 "I have got the answer with me to show you," I said. 
 
 He almost snatched the letter out of my hand; he turned 
 his back on me to read it by the light of the moon. The 
 letter was short enough to be soon read. I could have re- 
 peated it at the time. I can repeat it now. 
 
 " DEAR VICAR, Mr. Eustace "Woodville is quite correct in 
 stating to you that he is a gentleman by birth and position, 
 and that he inherits (under his deceased father's will) an in- 
 dependent fortune of two thousand a year. 
 
 "Always yours, LAWRENCE FITZ-DAVID." 
 
 "Can any body wish for a plainer answer than that?" 
 Eustace asked, handing the letter back to me. 
 
 "If /had written for information about you," I answered, 
 " it would have been plain enough for me." 
 
 " Is it not plain enough for your uncle ?" 
 
 " No." 
 
 "What does he say?". 
 
 " Why need you care to know, my darling?" 
 
 "I want to know, Valeria. There must be no secret be- 
 tween us in this matter. Did your uncle say any thing 
 when he showed you the major's letter?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " What was it ?" 
 
 "My uncle told me that his letter of inquiry filled three 
 pat^es, and he bade me observe that the major's answer con- 
 tained one sentence only. He said', 'I volunteered to go to 
 Major Fit./-David and talk the matter over. You see he 
 takes no notice of my proposal. I asked him for the address 
 of Mr. Wood viile*8 mother. He passes over my request, as 
 he has passed over my proposal he studiously confines him-
 
 20 THE LAW AND THK LADY. 
 
 self to the shortest possible statement of bare facts. Use 
 your own common-sense, Valeria. Isn't this rudeness rather 
 remarkable on the part of a man who is a gentleman by birth 
 and breeding, and who is also a friend of mine ?' " 
 
 Eustace stopped me there. 
 
 " Did you answer your uncle's question ?" he asked. 
 
 " No," I replied. " I only said that I did not understand 
 the major's conduct." 
 
 " And what did your uncle say next ? If you love me, 
 Valeria, tell me the truth." 
 
 " He used very strong language, Eustace. He is an old 
 man ; you must not be offended with him." 
 
 " I am not offended. What did he say ?" 
 
 "He said, 'Mark my words! There is something under 
 the surface in connection with Mr. Woodville, or with his 
 family, to which Major Fitz-David is not at liberty to allude. 
 Properly interpreted, Valeria, that letter is a warning. Show, 
 it to Mr. Woodville, and tell him (if you like) what I have 
 just told you ' " 
 
 Eustace stopped me again. 
 
 "You are sure your uncle said those words?" he asked, 
 scanning my face attentively in the moonlight. 
 
 "Quite sure. But I don't say what my uncle says. Pray 
 don't think that !" 
 
 He suddenly pressed me to his bosom, and fixed his eyes 
 on mine. His look frightened me. 
 
 " Good-by, Valeria !" he said. " Try and think kindly of 
 me, my darling, when you are married to some happier man." 
 
 He attempted to leave me. I clung to him in an agony 
 of terror that shook me from head to foot. 
 
 " What do you mean ?" I asked, as soon as I could speak. 
 " I am yours and yours only. What have I said, what have 
 I done, to deserve those dreadful words ?" 
 
 "We must part, my angel," he answered, sadly. "The 
 fault is none of yours ; the misfortune is all mine. My Va- 
 leria ! how can you marry a man who is an object of sus- 
 picion to your nearest and dearest friends? I have led a, 
 dreary life. I have never found in any other woman the 
 sympathy with me, the sweet comfort and companionship, 
 that I find in you. Oh, it is hard to lose you ! it is hard to 
 go back again to my unfriended life ! I must make the sac- 
 rifice, love, for your sake. I know no more why that letter
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 21 
 
 is what it is than you do. Will your uncle believe me? will 
 your friends believe me V One last kiss, Valeria ! Forgive 
 me for having loved you passionately, devotedly loved you. 
 Forgive me and let me go!" 
 
 I held him desperately, recklessly. His eyes put me be- 
 side myself; his words tilled me with a frenzy of despair. 
 
 " Go where you may," I said, "I go with you ! Friends 
 reputation I care nothing who I lose, or what I lose ! Oh, 
 Eustace, I am only a woman don't madden me ! I can't 
 live without yon. I must and will be your wife !" 
 
 Those wild words were all I could say before the misery 
 and madness in me forced their way outward in a burst of 
 sobs and tears. 
 
 He yielded. He soothed me with his charming voice; he 
 brought me back to myself with his tender caresses. He 
 called the bright heaven "above us to witness that he de- 
 voted his whole life to me. He vowed oh, in such solemn, 
 such eloquent words ! that his one thought, night arid day, 
 should be to prove himself worthy of such love as mine. 
 And had he not nobly redeemed the pledge ? Had not the 
 betrothal of that memorable night been followed by the be- 
 trothal at the altar, by the vows before God! Ah, what a 
 life was before me! What more than mortal happiness was 
 mine ! 
 
 Again I lifted my head from his bosom to tnsle the dear 
 delight of seeing him by my side my life, my love, my hus- 
 band, my own ! 
 
 Hardly awakened yet from the absorbing memories of the 
 past to the sweet realities of the present, I let my cheek 
 touch his cheek, I whispered to him softly, " Oh, how 1 love 
 you ! how I love you !" 
 
 The next instant I started back from him. My heart stood 
 still. I put my hand up to my face. What did I feel on my 
 cheek ? (/ had not been weeping I was too happy.) What 
 did I feel on my cheek? A tear! 
 
 His face was still averted from me. I turned it toward 
 me, with my own hands, by main force. 
 
 I looked at him and saw my husband, on our wedding- 
 day, with his eyes full of tears.
 
 22 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 RAMSGATE .SANDS. 
 
 EUSTACE succeeded in quieting my alarm. But I can hard- 
 ly say that he succeeded in satisfying my mind as well. 
 
 He had been thinking, he told me, of the contrast between 
 his past and his present life. ^Bitter remembrance of the 
 years that had gone had risen in his memory, and had filled 
 him with melancholy misgivings of his capacity to make my 
 life with him a happy one. He had asked himself if he had 
 not met me too late if he were not already a man soured 
 and broken by the disappointments and disenchantments of 
 the past ? Doubts such as these, weighing more and more 
 heavily on his mind, had filled his eyes with the tears which 
 I had discovered tears which he now entreated me, by mv 
 love for him, to dismiss from my memory forever. 
 
 I forgave him, comforted him, revived him ; but there were 
 moments when the remembrance of what I had seen troubled 
 me in secret, and when I asked myself if I really possessed 
 my husband's full confidence as he possessed mine. 
 
 We left the train at Ramsgate. 
 
 The favorite watering-place was empty ; the season was 
 just over. Our arrangements for the wedding tour included 
 a cruise to the Mediterranean in a yacht lent to Eustace by 
 a friend. We were both fond of the sea, and we were equal- 
 ly desirous, considering the circumstances under which we 
 had married, of escaping the notice of friends and acquaint- 
 ances. With this object in view, having celebrated our mar- 
 riage privately in London, we had decided on instructing the 
 sailing-master of the yacht to join us at Ramsgate. At this 
 port (when the season for visitors was at an end) we could 
 embark far more privately than at the popular yachting sta- 
 tions situated in the Isle of Wight. 
 
 Three days passed days of delicious solitude, of exquisite 
 happiness, never to be forgotten, never to be lived over again, 
 to the end of our lives ! 
 
 Early on the morning of the fourth day, just before sun- 
 rise, a trifling incident happened, which was noticeable, nev-
 
 THE I.A\V AM) TIIK I,AI>V. 23 
 
 erthek'ss, as being strange to me in inv experience of my- 
 self. 
 
 I awoke, suddenly and unaccountably, from a deep and 
 dreamless sleep with an all-pervading sensation of nervous 
 uneasiness which I had never felt before. In the old days at 
 the Vicarage my capacity as a sound sleeper had been the 
 subject of many a little harmless joke. From the moment 
 when my head was" on the pillow I had never known what it 
 was to awake until the maid knocked at my door. At all sea- 
 sons and times the long and uninterrupted repose of a child 
 was the repose that I enjoyed. 
 
 And now I had awakened, without any assignable cause, 
 hours before my usual time. I tried to compose myself to 
 sleep again. The effort was useless. Such a restlessness pos- 
 sessed me that I was not even able to lie still in the bed. 
 My husband was sleeping soundly by my side. In the fear 
 of disturbing him I rose, and put on my dressing-gown and 
 slippers. 
 
 I went to the window. The sun was just rising over the 
 calm gray sea. For a while the majestic spectacle before me 
 exercised a tranquilizing influence on the irritable condition 
 of my nerves. But ere long the old restlessness returned 
 upon me. I walked slowly to and fro in the room, until I 
 was weary of the monotony of the exercise. I took up a 
 book, and laid it aside again. My attention wandered ; the 
 author was powerless to recall it. I got on my feet once 
 more, and looked at Eustace, and admired him and loved him 
 in his tranquil sleep. I went back to the window, and wea- 
 ried of the beautiful morning. I sat down before the glass 
 and looked at myself. How haggard and worn I was al- 
 ready, through awaking before my usual time ! _J rose again, 
 not knowing what to do next. The confinement to the four 
 walls of the room began to be intolerable to me. I opened 
 the door that led into my husband's dressing-room, and en- 
 tered it, to try if the change would relieve me. 
 
 The first object that I noticed was his dressing-case, open 
 on the toilet-table. 
 
 I took out the bottles and pots and brushes and combs, 
 the knives and scissors in one compartment, the writing ma- 
 terials in another. I smelt the perfumes and pomatums; I 
 busily cleaned and dusted the bottles with my handkerchief 
 as I look them out. Little by little T completely emptied
 
 '24 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 the dressing-case. It was lined with blue velvet. In one 
 corner I noticed a tiny slip of loose blue silk. Taking it be- 
 tween my finger and thumb, and drawing it upward, I dis- 
 covered that there was a false bottom to the case, forming a 
 secret compartment for letters and papers. In my strange 
 condition capricious, idle, inquisitive it was an amusement 
 to me to take out the papers, just as I had taken out every 
 thing else. 
 
 I found some receipted bills, which failed to interest me; 
 some letters, which it is needless to say I laid aside after 
 only looking at the addresses; and, under all, a photograph, 
 face downward, with writing on the back of it. I looked at 
 the writing, and saw these words : 
 
 " To my dear son, Eustace." 
 
 His mother ! the woman who had so obstinately and mer- 
 cilessly opposed herself to our marriage ! 
 
 I eagerly turned the photograph, expecting to see a wom- 
 an with a stern, ill-tempered, forbidding countenance. To 
 my surprise, the face showed the remains of great beauty; 
 the expression, though remarkably firm, Avas yet winning, 
 tender, and kind. The gray hair was arranged in rows of 
 little quaint old-fashioned curls on either side of the head, 
 under a plain lace cap. At one corner of the mouth there 
 was a mark, apparently a mole, which added to the charac- 
 teristic peculiarity of the face. I looked and looked, fixing 
 the portrait thoroughly in my mind. This woman, who had 
 almost insulted me and my relatives, was, beyond all doubt 
 or dispute, so far as appearances went, a person possessing 
 unusual attractions a person whom it would be a pleasure 
 and a privilege to know. 
 
 I fell into deep thought. The discovery of the photograph 
 quieted me as nothing had quieted me yet. 
 
 The striking of a clock down stairs in the hall warned me 
 of the flight of time. I carefully put back all the objects in 
 the dressing-case (beginning with the photograph) exactly 
 as I had found them, and returned to the bedroom. As I 
 looked at my husband, still sleeping peacefully, the question 
 forced itself into my mind, What had made that genial, gen- 
 tle mother of his so sternly bent on parting us ? so harshly 
 and pitilessly resolute in asserting her disapproval of our 
 marriage? 
 
 Could T put my question openly to Eustace when he awoke ?
 
 THE LAW AND TUB LADY. 25 
 
 No ; I was afraid to venture that length. It had been tacit- 
 ly understood between us that we were not to speak of his 
 mother and, besides, he might be angry if he knew that I 
 had opened the private compartment of his dressing-case. 
 
 After breakfast that morning we had news at last of the 
 yacht. The vessel was safely moored in the inner harbor, 
 and the sailing-master was waiting to receive my husband's 
 orders on board. 
 
 Eustace hesitated at asking me to accompany him to the 
 yacht. It would be necessary for him to examine the inven- 
 tory of the vessel, and to decide questions, not very interest- 
 ing to a woman, relating to charts and barometers, provis- 
 ions and water. He asked me if I would wait for his return. 
 The day was enticingly beautiful, and the tide was on the 
 ebb. I pleaded for a walk on the sands ; and the landlady 
 at our lodgings, who happened to be in the room at the time, 
 volunteered to accompany me and take care of me. It was 
 agreed that we should walk as far as we felt inclined in the 
 direction of Broadstairs, and that Eustace should follow and 
 meet us on the sands, after having completed his arrange- 
 ments on board the yacht. 
 
 In half an hour more the landlady and I were out on the 
 beach. 
 
 The scene on that fine autumn morning was nothing less 
 than enchanting. The brisk breeze, the brilliant sky, the 
 flashing blue sea, the sun-bright cliffs and the tawny sands 
 at their feet, the gliding procession of ships on the great ma- 
 rine highway of the English Channel it was all so exhilarat- 
 ing, it was all so delightful, that I really believe if I had been 
 by myself I could have danced for joy like a child. The one 
 drawback to my happiness was the landlady's untiring tongue. 
 She was a forward, good-natured, empty-headed woman, who 
 persisted in talking, whether I listened or not, and who had 
 a habit of perpetually addressing me as " Mrs. Woodville," 
 which I thought a little overfamiliar as an assertion of equal- 
 ity from a person in her position to a person in mine. 
 
 We had been out, I should think, more than half an hour, 
 when we overtook a lady walking before us on the beach. 
 
 Just as we were about to pass the stranger she took her 
 handkerchief from her pocket, and accidentally drew out 
 with it a letter, which fell unnoticed by her, on the sand. 
 B
 
 26 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 I was nearest to the letter, and I picked it up and offered it 
 to the lady. 
 
 The instant she turned to thank me, I stood rooted to the 
 spot. There was the original of the photographic portrait in 
 the dressing-case ! there was my husband's mother, standing 
 face to face with me ! I recognized the quaint little gray 
 curls, the gentle, genial expression, the mole at the corner of 
 the mouth. No mistake was possible. His mother herself! 
 
 The old lady, naturally enough, mistook my confusion for 
 shyness. With perfect tact and kindness she entered into 
 conversation with me. In another minute I was walking 
 side by side with the woman who had sternly repudiated me 
 as a member of her family ; feeling, I own, terribly discom- 
 posed, and not knowing in the least whether I ought or ought 
 not to assume the responsibility, in my husband's absence, 
 of telling her who I was. 
 
 In another minute my familiar landlady, walking on the 
 other side of my mother-in-law, decided the question for me. 
 I happened to say that I supposed we must by that time be 
 near the end of our walk the little watering-place called 
 Broadstairs. " Oh no, Mrs.Woodville !" cried the irrepress- 
 ible woman, calling me by my name, asmsual ; " nothing like 
 so near as you think !" 
 
 I looked with a beating heart at the old lady. 
 
 To my unutterable amazement, not the faintest gleam of 
 recognition appeared in her face. Old Mrs.Woodville went 
 on talking to young Mrs.Woodville just as composedly as if 
 she had never heard her own name before in her life ! 
 
 My face and manner must have betrayed something of the 
 agitation that I was suffering. Happening to^look at me at 
 the end of her next sentence, the old lady started, and said, 
 in her kindly way, 
 
 " I am afraid you have overexerted yourself. You are very 
 pale you are looking quite exhausted. Come and sit down 
 here ; let me lend you my smelling-bottle." 
 
 I followed her, quite helplessly, to the base of the cliff. 
 Some fallen fragments of chalk offered us a seat. I vaguely 
 heard the voluble landlady's expressions of sympathy and 
 regret; I mechanically took the smelling-bottle which my 
 husband's mother offered to me, after hearing my name, as 
 an act of kindness to a stranger. 
 
 If I had only had myself to think of, I believe I should
 
 TI1K LAW AND THE LADY. 27 
 
 have provoked an explanation on the spot. But I had Eus- 
 tace to think of. I was entirely ignorant of the relations, 
 hostile or friendly, which existed between his mother and 
 himself. What could I do ? 
 
 In the mean time the old lady was still speaking to me 
 with the most considerate sympathy. She too was fatigued, 
 she said. She had passed a weary night at the bedside of a 
 near relative staying at Ramsgate. Only the day before she 
 had received a telegram announcing that one of her sisters 
 was seriously ill. She was herself, thank God, still active and 
 strong, and she had thought it her duty to start at once for 
 Ramsgate. Toward the morning the state of the patient had 
 improved. "The doctor assures me, ma'am, that there is no 
 immediate danger ; and I thought it might revive me, after my 
 long night at the bedside, if I took a little walk on the beach." 
 
 I heard the words I understood what they meant but I 
 was still too bewildered and too intimidated by my extraor- 
 dinary position to be able to continue the conversation. The 
 landlady had a sensible suggestion to make the landlady 
 was the next person who spoke. 
 
 " Here is a gentleman coming," she said to me, pointing 
 in the direction of Rtfmsgate. "You can never walk back. 
 Shall we ask him to send a chaise from Broadstairs to the 
 gap in the cliff?" 
 
 The gentleman advanced a little nearer. 
 
 The landlady and I recognized him at the same moment. 
 It was Eustace coming to meet us, as we had arranged. The 
 irrepressible landlady gave the freest expression to her feel- 
 ings. " Oh, Mrs.Woodville, ain't it lucky ? here is Mr.Wood- 
 villc himself." 
 
 Once more I looked at my mother-in-law. Once more the 
 name failed to produce the slightest effect on her. Her sight 
 was not so keen as ours ; she had not recognized her son yet. 
 Jle had young eyes like us, and he recognized his mother. 
 For a moment he stopped like a man thunderstruck. Then 
 he came on his ruddy face white with suppressed emotion, 
 his eyes fixed on his mother. 
 
 " You here !" he said to her. 
 
 " How do you do, Eustace ?" she quietly rejoined. " Have 
 you heard of your aunt's illness too ? Did you know she was 
 staying a-t Ramsgate ?" 
 
 He made no answer. The landlady, drawing the inevit.i-
 
 28 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 ble inference from the words that she had just heard, looked 
 from me to my mother-in-law in a state of amazement, which 
 paralyzed even her tongue. I waited with my eyes on my 
 husband, to see what he would do. If he had delayed ac- 
 knowledging me another moment, the whole future course 
 of my life might have been altered I should have despised 
 him. 
 
 He did not delay. He came to my side and took my hand. 
 
 " Do you know who this is ?" he said to his mother. 
 
 She answered, looking at me with a courteous bend of her 
 head: 
 
 " A lady I met on the beach, Eustace, who kindly restored 
 to me a letter that I dropped. I think I heard the name " 
 (she turned to the landlady) : " Mrs.Woodville, was it not ?" 
 
 My husband's fingers unconsciously closed on my hand 
 with a grasp that hurt me. He set his mother right, it is 
 only just to say, without one cowardly moment of hesitation. 
 
 "Mother," he said to her, very quietly, "this lady is my 
 wife." 
 
 She had hitherto kept her seat. She now rose slowly and 
 faced her son in silence. The first expression of surprise 
 passed from her face. It was succeeded by the most terrible 
 look of mingled indignation and contempt that I ever saw in 
 a woman's eyes. 
 
 ".I pity your wife," she said. 
 
 With those words and no more, lifting her hand she waved 
 him back from her, and^fvent OTI her way again, as we had 
 first found her, alone. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ON THE WAY HOME. 
 
 LEFT by ourselves, there was a moment of silence among 
 us. Eustace spoke first. 
 
 " Are you able to walk back ?" he said to me. " Or shall 
 we go on to Broadstairs, and return to Ramsgate by the rail- 
 way ?" 
 
 He put those questions as composedly, so far as his manner 
 was concerned, as if nothing remarkable had happened. But 
 his eyes and his lips betrayed him. They told me that he
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 29 
 
 was suffering keenly in secret. The extraordinary scene that 
 had just passed, far from depriving me of the last remains of 
 my courage, had strung up my nerves and restored my self- 
 possession. I must have been more or less than woman if 
 my self-respect had not been wounded, if my curiosity had 
 not been wrought to the highest pitch, by the extraordinary 
 conduct of my husband's mother when Eustace presented me 
 to her. What was the secret of her despising him, and pity- 
 ing me ? Where was the explanation of her incomprehensi- 
 ble apathy when my name was twice pronounced in her hear- 
 ing ? Why had she left us, as if the bare idea of remaining 
 in our company was abhorrent to her? The foremost inter- 
 est of my life was now the interest of penetrating these mys- 
 teries. Walk ? I was in such a fever of expectation that 
 I felt as if I could have walked to the world's end, if I 
 could only keep my husband by my side, and question him 
 on the way. 
 
 " I am quite recovered," I said. " Let us go back, as we 
 came, on foot." 
 
 Eustace glanced at the landlady. The landlady under- 
 stood him. 
 
 " I won't intrude my company on you, sir," she said, sharp- 
 ly. " I have some business to do at Broadstairs, and, now I 
 am so near, I may as well go on. Good-morninc:, Mrs.Wood- 
 ville." 
 
 She laid a marked emphasis on my name, and she added 
 one significant look at parting, which (in the preoccupied 
 state of my mind at that moment) I entirely failed to com- 
 prehend. There was neither time nor opportunity to ask her 
 what she meant. With a stiff little bow, addressed to Eus- 
 tace, she leTt us as his mother had left us, taking the way to 
 Broadstairs, and walking rapidly. 
 
 At last we were alone. 
 
 I lost no time in beginning my inquiries ; I wasted no 
 words in prefatory phrases. In the plainest terms I put the 
 question to him : 
 
 " What does your mother's conduct mean ?" 
 
 Instead of answering, he burst inta a fit of laughter loud, 
 coarse, hard laughter, so utterly unlike any sound I had ever 
 yet heard issue from his lips, so strangely and shockingly for- 
 eign to his character as / understood it, that I stood still on 
 the sands, and openly remonstrated with him.
 
 30 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 "Eustace! you are not like yourself," I said. "You af- 
 most frighten me." 
 
 He took no notice. He seemed to be pursuing some pleas- 
 ant train of thought just started in his mind. 
 
 " So like my mother !" he exclaimed, with the air of a man 
 who felt irresistibly diverted by some humorous idea of his 
 own. " Tell me all about it, Valeria !" 
 
 " Tell you!" I repeated. " After what has happened, sure- 
 ly it is your duty to enlighten me." 
 
 " You don't see the joke," he said. 
 
 " I not only fail to see the joke," I rejoined, " I see sorne- 
 thing.in your mother's language and your mother's behavior 
 which justifies me in asking you for a serious explanation." 
 
 " My dear Valeria, if you understood my mother as well 
 as I do, a serious explanation of her conduct would be the 
 last thing in the world that you would expect from me. The 
 idea of taking my mother .seriously !" He burst out laugh- 
 ing again. "My darling, you don't know how you amuse 
 me." 
 
 It was all forced ; it was all unnatural. He, the most deli- 
 cate, the most refined of men a gentleman in the^highest 
 sense of the word was coarse and loud and vulgar ! My 
 heart sank under a sudden sense of misgiving which, with all 
 my love for him, it was impossible to resist. In unutterable 
 distress and alarm I asked myself, " Is my husband begin- 
 ning to deceive me? is he acting a part, and acting it badly, 
 before we have been married a week ?" 
 
 I set myself to, win his confidence in a new way. He was 
 evidently determined to force his own point of view on me. 
 I determined, on my side, to accept his point of view. 
 
 "You tell me I don't understand your mother," I said, 
 gently. " Will you help me to understand her ?" 
 
 " It is .not easy to help you to understand a woman who 
 doesn't understand herself," he answered. " But I will try. 
 The key to my poor dear mother's character is, iu one word 
 Eccentricity." 
 
 If he had picked out the most inappropriate word in the 
 whole dictionary to describe the lady whom I had met on 
 the beach, " Eccentricity " would have been that word. A 
 child who had seen what I saw, who had heard what I heard, 
 would have discovered that he was trifling grossly, reck- 
 lessly trifling with the truth.
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 31 
 
 " Bear in mind what I have said," he proceeded ; " and if 
 you want to understand my mother, do what I asked you to 
 do a minute since tell me all about it. How came you to 
 speak to her, to begin with ?" 
 
 "Your mother told you, Eustace. I was walking just be- 
 hind her, when she dropped a letter by accident " 
 
 " Xo accident," Ije interposed. " The letter was dropped 
 on purpose." 
 
 " Impossible !" I exclaimed. " Why should your mother 
 drop the letter on purpose?" 
 
 " Use the key to her character, my dear. Eccentricity ! 
 My mother's odd way of making acquaintance with you." 
 
 "Making acquaintance with me? I have just told you 
 that I was walking behind her. She could not have known 
 of the existence of such a person as myself until I spoke to 
 her first." 
 
 "So you suppose, Valeria." 
 
 " I am certain of it," 
 
 " Pardon me you don't know my mother as I do." 
 
 I began to lose a*ll patience with him. 
 
 "Do^you mean to tell me," I said, " that your mother was 
 out on the sands to-day for the express purpose of making 
 acquaintance with Me ?" 
 
 " I have not the Slightest doubt of it," he answered, coolly. 
 
 " Why, she didn't even recognize my name !" I burst out. 
 "Twice over the landlady called me Mrs.Woodville in your 
 mother's hearing, and twice over, I declare to you on my 
 word of honor, it failed to produce the slightest impression 
 on her. She looked and acted as if she had never heard her 
 own name before in her life.'i 
 
 "'Acted' is the right word," he said, just as composedly 
 as before. " The women on the stage are not the only wom- 
 en who can aet. My mother's object was to make herself 
 thoroughly acquainted with you, and to throw you oft' your 
 guard by speaking in the character of a stranger. It is ex- 
 actly like her to take that roundabout way of satisfying her 
 curiosity about a daughter-in-law she disapproves of. If I 
 had not joined you when I did, you would have been exam- 
 ined and cross-examined about yourself and about me, and 
 you would innocently have answered under the impression 
 that you were speaking to a chance acquaintance. There is 
 my mother all over! She is your enemy, remember not
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 your friend. She is not in search of your merits, but of your 
 faults. And you wonder why no impression was produced 
 on her when she heard you addressed by your name ! Poor 
 innocent! I can tell you this you only discovered my 
 mother in her own character when I put an end to the mys- 
 tification by presenting you to each other. You saw how 
 angry she was, and now you know why.". 
 
 I let him go on without saying a word. I listened oh ! 
 with such a heavy heart, with such a crushing sense of dis- 
 enchantment and despair ! The idol of my worship, the com- 
 panion, guide, protector of my life had he fallen so low ? 
 could he stoop to such shameless prevarication as this ? 
 
 "Was there one word of truth in all that he had said to 
 me? Yes! If I had not discovered his mother's portrait, 
 it was certainly true that I should not have known, not even 
 have vaguely suspected, who she really was. Apart from 
 this, the rest was lying, clumsy lying, which said one thing 
 at least for him, that he was not accustomed to falsehood 
 and deceit. Good Heavens ! if my husband was to be be- 
 lieved, his mother must have tracked us to London, tracked 
 us to the church, tracked us to the railway station, tracked 
 us to Ramsgate ! To assert that she knew me by sight as 
 the wife of Eustace, and that she had waited on the sands 
 and dropped her letter for the express purpose of making ac- 
 quaintance with me, was also to assert every one of these 
 monstrous probabilities to be facts that had actually hap- 
 pened ! 
 
 I could say no more. I walked by his side in silence, feel- 
 ing the miserable conviction that there was an abyss in the 
 shape of a family secret between my husband and me. In 
 the spirit, if not in the body, we were separated, after a mar- 
 ried life of barely four days. 
 
 " Valeria," he asked, " have you nothing to say to me ?" 
 
 " Nothing." 
 
 "Are you not satisfied with my explanation?" 
 
 I detected a slight tremor in his voice as he put that ques- 
 tion. The tone was, for the first time since we had spoken 
 together, a tone that my experience associated with him in 
 certain moods of his which I had already learned to know 
 well. Among the hundred thousand mysterious influences 
 which a man exercises over a woman who loves him, I doubt 
 if there is any more irresistible to her than the influence of
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 33 
 
 his voice. I am not one of those women who shed tears on 
 the smallest provocation : it is not in my temperament, I sup- 
 pose. But when I heard that little natural change in his 
 tone my mind went back (I can't say why) to the happy 
 day when I first owned that I loved him. I burst out cry- 
 ing. 
 
 lie suddenly stood still, and took me by the hand. He 
 tried to look at me. 
 
 I kept my head down and my eyes on the ground. I was 
 ashamed of my weakness and my want of spirit. I was de- 
 termined not to look at him. 
 
 In the silence that followed he suddenly dropped on his 
 knees at my feet, with a cry of despair that cut through me 
 like a knife. 
 
 "Valeria! I am vile I am false f am unworthy of you. 
 Don't believe a word of what I have been saying lies, lies, 
 cowardly, contemptible lies ! You don't know what I have 
 gone through ; you don't know how I have been tortured. 
 Oh, my darling, try not to despise me ! I must have been 
 beside myself when I spoke to you as I did. You looked 
 hurt; you looked oifended ; I didn't know what to do. I 
 wanted to spare you even a moment's pain I wanted to 
 hush it up, and have done with it. For God's sake don't 
 ask me to tell you any more ! My love ! my angel ! it's 
 something between my mother and me ; it's nothing that 
 need disturb you ; it's nothing to any body now. I love you, 
 I adore you ; my whole heart and soul are yours. Be satis- 
 fied with that. Forget what has happened. You shall never 
 see ray mother again. We will leave this place to-morrow. 
 We will go away in the yacht. Does it matter where we 
 live, so long as we live for each other ? Forgive and forget ! 
 Oh,Valcria, Valeria, forgive and forget !" 
 
 Unutterable misery was in his face ; unutterable misery 
 was in his voice. Remember this. And remember that I 
 loved him. 
 
 "It is easy to forgive," I said, sadly. "For your sake, 
 Eustace, I will try to forget." 
 
 I raised him gently as I spoke. He kissed my hands with 
 the air of a man who was too humble to venture on any 
 more familiar expression of his gratitude than that. The 
 sense of embarrassment between us as we slowly walked on 
 again was so unendurable that I actually cast about in my 
 B 2
 
 34 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 mind for a subject of conversation, as if I had been in the 
 company of a stranger ! In mercy to him, I asked him to tell 
 me about the yacht. 
 
 He seized on the subject as a drowning man seizes on the 
 hand that rescues him. 
 
 On that one poor little topic of the yacht he talked, talked, 
 talked, as if his life depended upon his not being silent for an 
 instant on the rest of the way back. To me it was dreadful 
 to hear him. I could estimate what he was suffering by the 
 violence which he ordinarily a silent and thoughtful man 
 was now doing to his true nature, and to the prejudices and 
 habits of his life. With the greatest difficulty I preserved 
 my self-control until we reached the door of our lodgings. 
 There I was obliged to plead fatigue, and ask him to let me 
 rest for a little while in the solitude of my own room. 
 
 "Shall we sail to-morrow?" he called after me suddenly, 
 as I ascended the stairs. 
 
 Sail with him to the Mediterranean the next day? Pass 
 weeks and weeks absolutely alone with him, in the narrow 
 limits of a vessel, with his horrible secret parting us in sym- 
 pathy farther and farther from each other day by day ? I 
 shuddered at the thought of it. 
 
 "To-morrow is rather a short notice," I said. "Will you 
 give me a little longer time to prepare for the voyage ?" 
 
 " Oh yes take any time you like," he answered, not (as I 
 thought) very willingly. " While you are resting there are 
 still one or two little things to be settled I think I will go 
 back to the yacht. Is there any thing I can do for you, Va- 
 leria, before I go ?" 
 
 "Nothing thank you, Eustace." 
 
 He hastened away to the harbor. Was he afraid of his 
 own thoughts, if he were left by himself in the house. W T as 
 the company of the sailing-master and the steward better 
 than no company at all? 
 
 It was useless to ask. What did I know about him or his 
 thoughts ? I locked myself into my room.
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 35 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE LANDLADY'S DISCOVERY. 
 
 I SAT clown, and tried to compose my spirits. Now or nev- 
 er was the time to decide what it was my duty to my hus- 
 band and my duty to myself to do next. 
 
 The effort was beyond me. Worn out in mind and body 
 alike, I was perfectly incapable of pursuing any regular train 
 of thought. I vaguely felt if I left things as they were 
 that I could never hope to remove the shadow which now 
 rested on the married life that had begun so brightly. We 
 might live together, so as to save appearances. But to forget 
 what had happened, or to feel satisfied with my position, was 
 beyond the power of my will. My tranquillity as a woman 
 perhaps my dearest interests as a wife depended absolute- 
 ly on penetrating the mystery of my mother-in-law's conduct, 
 and on discovering the true -meaning of the wild words of pen- 
 itence and self-reproach which my husband had addressed to 
 me on our way home. 
 
 So far I could advance toward realizing my position and no 
 farther. When I asked myself what was to be done next, hope- 
 less confusion, maddening doubt, filled my mind, and trans- 
 formed me into the most listless and helpless of living women. 
 
 I gave up the struggle. In dull, stupid, obstinate despair, 
 I threw myself on my bed, and fell from sheer fatigue into a 
 broken, uneasy sleep. 
 
 I was awakened by a knock at the door of my room. 
 
 Was it my husband ? I started to my feet as the idea oc- 
 curred to me. Was some new trial of my patience and my 
 fortitude at hand ? Half nervously, half irritably, I asked 
 who was there. 
 
 The landlady's voice answered me. 
 
 " Can I speak to you for a moment, if you please?" 
 
 I opened the door. There is no disguising it though I 
 loved him so dearly, though I had left home and friends for 
 his sake it was a relief to me, at that miserable time, to know 
 that Eustace had not returned to the house. 
 
 The landlady came in, and took a seat, without waiting to
 
 3G THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 be invited, close by my side. She was no longer satisfied 
 with merely asserting herself as my equal. Ascending an-" 
 other step on the social ladder, she took her stand on the 
 platform of patronage, and charitably looked down on me as 
 an object of pity. 
 
 "I have just returned from Broadstairs," she began. "I 
 hope you will do me the justice to believe that I sincerely re- 
 gret what has happened." 
 
 I bowed, and said nothing, 
 
 C> O 
 
 "As a gentlewoman myself," proceeded the landlady " re- 
 duced by family misfortunes to let lodgings, but still a gen- 
 tlewoman I feel sincere sympathy with you. I will even 
 go farther than that. I will take it on myself to say that I 
 don't blame you. No, no. I noticed that you were as much 
 shocked and surprised at your mother-in-law's conduct as I 
 was ; and that is saying a great deal a great deal indeed. 
 However, I have a duty to perform. It is disagreeable, but 
 it is not the less a duty on that account. I am a single wom- 
 an ; not from want of opportunities of changing my condition 
 I beg you will understand that but from choice. Situa- 
 ted as I am, I receive only the m6"st respectable persons into 
 my house. There must be no mystery about the positions 
 of my lodgersT Mystery in the position of a lodger carries 
 with it what shall I say? I don't wish to offend you I 
 will say, a certain Taint. Very well. Now I put it to your 
 own common-sense. Can a person in my position be expect- 
 ed to expose herself to Taint ? I make these remarks in a 
 sisterly and Christian spirit. As a lady yourself I will even 
 go the length of saying a cruelly used lady you will, I am 
 sure, understand " 
 
 I could endure it no longer. I stopped her there. 
 
 " I understand," I said, " that yon wish to give us notice to 
 quit your lodgings. When do you want us to go ?" 
 
 The landlady held up a long, lean, red hand, in a somwful 
 and sisterly protest. 
 
 " No," she said. " Not that tone ; not those looks. It's 
 natural you should be annoyed; it's natural you should be 
 angry. But do now do please try and control yourself. I 
 put it to your own common-sense (we will say a week for the 
 notice to quit) why not treat me like a friend ? You don't 
 know what a sacrifice, what a cruel sacrifice, I have made 
 entirely for your sake."
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 37 
 
 " You ?" I cxclaimotl. What sacrifice ?" 
 
 "What sacrifice?" repeated the landlady. "I have de- 
 graded myself as a gentlewoman. I have forfeited my own 
 self-respect." She paused for a moment, and suddenly seized 
 my hand in a perfect frenzy of friendship. " Oh, my poor 
 dear !" cried this intolerable person. " I have discovered ev- 
 ery thing. A villain has deceived you. You are no more 
 married than I am !" 
 
 I snatched my hand out of hers, and rose angrily from my 
 chair. 
 
 "Are you mad ?" I asked. 
 
 The landlady raised her eyes to the ceiling with the air of 
 a person who had deserved martyrdom, and who submitted 
 to it cheerfully. 
 
 "Yes," she said. "I begin to think I am mad mad to 
 Lave devoted myself to an ungrateful woman, to a person 
 who doesn't appreciate a sisterly and Christian sacrifice of 
 self. Well, I won't do it again. Heaven forgive me I 
 won't do it again !" 
 
 " Do what again ?" I asked. 
 
 " Follow your mother-in-law," cried the landlady, suddenly 
 dropping the character of a martyr, and assuming the charac- 
 ter of a vixen in its place. " I blush when I think of it. I 
 followed that most respectable person every step of the way 
 to her own door." 
 
 Tims far my pride had held me up. It sustained me no 
 longer. I dropped back again into my chair, in undisguised 
 dread of what was coming next. 
 
 "I gave you a look when I left you on the" beach," pur- 
 sued the landlady, growing louder and louder and redder and 
 redder as she went on. " A grateful woman would have un- 
 derstood that look. Never mind ! I won't do it again. I 
 overtook your mother-in-law at the gap in the cliff. I follow- 
 ed her oh, how I feel the disgrace of it now ! I followed 
 her to the station at Broadstairs. She went back by train to 
 Ramsgate. I went back by train to Kamsgate. She walked 
 to her lodgings. I walked to her lodgings. Behind her. 
 Like a dog. Oh, the disgrace of it ! Providentially, as I 
 then thought I don't know what to think of it now the 
 landlord of the house happened to be a friend of mine, and 
 happened to be at home. We have no secrets from each 
 other where lodgers are concerned. I am in a position to
 
 38 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 tell you, madam, what your mother-in-law's name really is. 
 She knows nothing about any such person as Mrs. Woodville, 
 for an excellent reason. Her name is not Woodville. Her 
 name (and consequently her son's name) is Macallan Mrs. 
 Macallan, widow of the late General Macallan. Yes ! your 
 husband is not your husband. You are neither maid, wife, 
 nor widow. You are worse than nothing, madam, and you 
 leave my house !" 
 
 I stopped her as she opened the door to go out. She had 
 roused my temper by this time. The doubt that she had 
 cast on my marriage was more than mortal resignation could 
 endure. 
 
 " Give me Mrs. Macallan's address," I said. 
 
 The landlady's anger receded into the background, and 
 the landlady's astonishment appeared in its place. 
 
 "You don't mean to tell me you are going to the old lady 
 herself?" she said. 
 
 "Nobody but the old lady can tell me what I want to 
 know," I answered. " Your discovery (as you call it) may 
 be enough for you ; it is not enough for. me. How do we 
 know that Mrs. Macallan may not have been twice married ? 
 and that her first husband's name may not have been Wood- 
 ville?" 
 
 The landlady's astonishment subsided in its turn, and the 
 landlady's curiosity succeeded as the ruling influence of the 
 moment. Substantially, as I have already -said of her, she 
 was a good-natured woman. Her fits of temper (as is usual 
 with good-natured people) were of the hot and the short- 
 lived sort, easily roused and easily appeased. 
 
 "I never thought of that," she said. "Look here! if I 
 give you the address, will you promise to tell me all about 
 it, when you come back?" 
 
 I gave the required promise, and received the address in 
 return. 
 
 " No malice," said the landlady, suddenly resuming all her 
 old familiarity with me. 
 
 " No malice," I answered, with all possible cordiality on 
 my side. 
 
 In ten minutes more I was at my 'mother-in-law's lodgings.
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. C9 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 MY OWN DISCOVERY. 
 
 FORTUNATELY for mo, the landlord did not open the door 
 when I rang. A stupid maid-of-all-work, who never thought 
 of asking rue for my name, let me in. Mrs. Macallan was at 
 home, and had no visitors with her. Giving me this infor- 
 mation, the maid led the way up stairs, and showed me into 
 the drawing-room without a word of announcement. 
 
 My mother-in-law was sitting alone, near a work-tablo, 
 knitting. The moment I appeared in the doorway she laid 
 aside her work, and, rising, signed to me with a commanding 
 gesture of her hand to let her speak first. 
 
 "I know what you have come here for," she said. "You 
 have come here to ask questions. Spare yourself and spare 
 me. I warn you beforehand that I will not answer any ques- 
 tions relating to my son." 
 
 It was firmly, but not harshly said. I spoke firmly in my 
 turn. 
 
 "I have not come here, madam, to ask questions about 
 your son," I answered. " I have come, if you will excuse me, 
 to ask you a question about yourself." 
 
 She started, and looked at me keenly over her spectacles. 
 I had evidently taken her by surprise. 
 
 "What is the question?" she inquired. 
 
 , "I now know for the first time, madam, that your name is 
 Macallan," I said. "Your son has married me under the 
 name of Woodvillc. The only honorable explanation of this 
 circumstance, so far as I know, is that my husband is your 
 son by a first marriage. The happiness of my life is at stake. 
 Will you kindly consider my position ? Will you let me 
 ask you if you have been twice married, and if the name of 
 your first husband was Woodville?" 
 
 She considered a little before she replied. 
 
 "The question is a perfectly natural one in your position," 
 she said. " But I think I had better not answer it." 
 
 "May I ask why?" 
 * "Certainly. If I answered you, I should only lead to oth-
 
 40 THE LAW AND TIIE LADY. 
 
 er questions, and I should be obliged to decline replying to 
 them. I am sorry to disappoint you. I repeat what I said 
 on the beach I have no other feeling than a feeling of sym- 
 pathy toward you. If you -had consulted me before your 
 marriage, I should willingly have admitted you to my fullest 
 confidence. It is now too late. You are married. I recom- 
 mend you to make the best of your position, and to rest sat- 
 isfied with things as they are." 
 
 "Pardon me, madam," I remonstrated. "As things are, 
 I don't know that I am married. All I know, unless you en- 
 lighten me, is that your son has married me under a name 
 that is not his own. How can I be sure whether I am or am 
 not his lawful wife ?" 
 
 "I believe there can be no doubt that you are lawfully 
 my son's wife," Mrs. Macallan answered. "At any rate it is 
 easy to take a legal opinion on the subject. It' the opinion 
 is that you are not lawfully married, my son (whatever his 
 faults and failings may be) is a gentleman. He is incapable 
 of willfully deceiving a woman who loves and trusts him. 
 He will do you justice. On my side, I will do you justice too. 
 li the legal opinion is adverse to your rightful claims, I will 
 promise to answer any questions which you may choose to 
 put to me. As it is, I believe you to be lawfully my son's 
 wife ; and I say again, make the best of your position. Be 
 satisfied with your husband's affectionate devotion to you. 
 If you value your peace of mind and the happiness of your 
 life to come, abstain from attempting to know more than you 
 know now." 
 
 She sat down again with the air of a woman who had said 
 her last word. 
 
 Further remonstrance would be useless ; I could see it in 
 her face ; I could hear it in her voice. I turned round to 
 open the drawing-room door. 
 
 " You are hard on me, madam," I said at parting. " I am 
 at your mercy, and I must submit." 
 
 She suddenly looked up, and answered me with a flush on 
 her kind and handsome old face. 
 
 "As God is my witness, child, I pity you from the bottom 
 of my heart !" 
 
 After that extraordinary outburst of feeling, she took up 
 her work with one hand, and signed to me with- the other to 
 leave her.
 
 TIIK J,AW AXD THE LADY. 41 
 
 I bowed to her in silence, and went out. 
 
 I had entered the house far from feeling sure of the course 
 I ought to take in the future. I left the house positively re- 
 solved, come what might of it, to discover the secret which 
 the mother and son were hiding from me. As to the ques- 
 tion of the name, I saw it now in the light in which I ought 
 to have seen it from the first. If Mrs. Macallan had been 
 twice married (as I had rashly chosen to suppose), she would 
 certainly have shown some signs of recognition when she 
 heard me addressed by her first husband's name. Where all 
 else was mystery, there was no mystery here. Whatever 
 his reasons might be, Eustace had assuredly married me un- 
 der an assumed name. 
 
 Approaching the door of our lodgings, I saw my husband 
 walking backward and forward before it, evidently waiting 
 for my return. If he asked me the question, I decided to tell 
 him frankly w r here I had been, and what had passed between 
 his mother and myself. 
 
 He hurried to meet me with signs of disturbance in his face 
 and manner. 
 
 "I have a favor to ask of you,Valeria," he said. " Do you 
 mind returning with me to London by the next train ?" 
 
 I looked at him. In the popular phrase, I could hardly be- 
 lieve my own cars. 
 
 "It's a matter of business," he went on, "of no interest to 
 any one but myself, and it requires my presence in London. 
 You don't wish to sail just yet, as I understand? I can't 
 leave you here by yourself. Have you any objection to go- 
 ing to London for a day or two ?" 
 
 I made no objection. I too was eager to go back. 
 
 In London I could obtain the legal opinion which would 
 tell me whether I were lawfully married to Eustace or not. In 
 London I should be within reach of the help and advice of 
 my father's faithful old clerk. I could confide in Benjamin as 
 I could confide in no one else. Dearly as I loved my uncle 
 Starkweather, I shrank from communicating with him in my 
 present need. His wife had told me that I had made a bad 
 beginning when I signed the wrong name in the marriage reg- 
 ister. Shall I own it? My pride shrank from acknowledg- 
 ing, before the honeymoon was over, that his wife was right. 
 
 In two hours more we were on the railway again. Ah,
 
 42 THE LAW AND TIIE LADY. 
 
 what a contrast that second journey presented to the first ! 
 On our way to Ramsgate every body could see that Ave were 
 a newly wedded couple. On our way to London nobody 
 noticed us ; nobody would have doubted that we had been 
 married for years. 
 
 We went to a private hotel in the neighborhood of Port- 
 land Place. 
 
 After breakfast the next morning Eustace announced that 
 he must leave me to attend to his business. I had previous- 
 ly mentioned to him that I had some purchases to make in 
 London. He was quite willing to let me go out alone, on the 
 condition that I should take a carriage provided by the hotel. 
 
 My heart was heavy that morning : I felt the unacknowl- 
 edged estrangement that had grown up between us very 
 keenly. My husband opened the door to go out, and came 
 back to kiss me before he left me by myself. That little 
 after-thought of tenderness touched me. Acting on the 
 impulse of the moment, I put my arm round his neck, and 
 held him to me gently. 
 
 " My darling," I said, "give me all your confidence. I know 
 that you love me. Show that you can trust me too." 
 
 He sighed bitterly, and drew back from me in sorrow, 
 not in anger. 
 
 "I thought we had agreed, Valeria, not to return to that 
 subject again," he said. " You only distress yourself and dis- 
 tress me." 
 
 He left the room abruptly, as if he dare not trust himself to 
 say more. It is better not to dwell on what I felt after this 
 last repulse. I ordered the carriage at once. I was eager to 
 find a refuge from my own thoughts in movement and change. 
 
 I drove to the shops first, and made the purchases which I 
 had mentioned to Eustace by way of giving a reason for go- 
 ing out. Then I devoted myself to the object which I really 
 had at heart. I went to old Benjamin's little villa, in the 
 by-ways of St. John's "Wood. 
 
 As soon as he had got over the first surprise of seeing me, 
 he noticed that I looked pale and care-worn. I confessed at 
 once that I was in trouble. "We sat down together by the 
 bright fireside in his little library (Benjamin, as far as his 
 means would allow, was a great collector of books), and there 
 I told my old friend, frankly and truly, all that I have told 
 here.
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 43 
 
 lie was too distressed to say much. Ho fervently pressed 
 my hand ; he fervently thanked God that my father had not 
 lived to hear what he had heard. Then, after a pause, he 
 repeated my mother-in-law's name to himself in a doubting, 
 questioning tone. 
 
 " Macallan ?" he said. " Macallan ? Where have I heard 
 that name ? Why does it sound as if it wasn't strange to me ?" 
 
 lie gave up pursuing the lost recollection, and asked, very 
 earnestly, what he could do for me. I answered that he could 
 help me, in. the first place, to put an end to the doubt an 
 unendurable doubt to me whether I were lawfully married 
 or not. His energy of the old days when he had conducted 
 my father's business showed itself again the moment I said 
 those words. 
 
 "Your carriage is at the door, my dear," he answered. 
 " Come with me to my own lawyer, without wasting another 
 moment." 
 
 We drove to Lincoln's Inn Fields. 
 
 At my request Benjamin put my case to the lawyer as the 
 case of a friend in whom I was interested. The answer was 
 given without hesitation. I had married, honestly believing 
 my husband's name to be the name under which I had known 
 him. The witnesses to my marriage my uncle, my aunt, 
 .and Benjamin had acted, as I had acted, in perfect good 
 faith. Under those circumstances, there was no doubt about 
 the law. I was legally married. Macallan or Woodville, I 
 was his wife. 
 
 This decisive answer relieved me of a heavy anxiety. I 
 acceptc'd my old friend's invitation to return with him to St. 
 John's Wood, and to make my luncheon at his early dinner. 
 
 On our way back I reverted to the one other subject which 
 was now uppermost in my mind. I reiterated my resolution 
 to discover why Eustace had not married me under the name 
 that was really his own. 
 
 My companion shook his head, and entreated me to con- 
 sider well beforehand what I proposed doing. His advice 
 to me so strangely do extremes meet ! was my mother-in- 
 law's advice, repeated almost word for word. " Leave things 
 as they are, my dear. In the interest of your own peace of 
 mind be satisfied with your husband's ailection. You know 
 that you arc his wife, and you know that he loves you. Pure- 
 ly that is enough?"
 
 44 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 I had but one answer to this. Life, on such conditions as 
 rny good friend had just stated, would be simply unendurable 
 to me. Nothing could alter my resolution for this plain 
 reason, that nothing could reconcile me to living with my 
 husband on the terms on which we were living now. It only 
 rested with Benjamin to say whether he would give a help- 
 ing hand to his master's daughter or not. 
 
 The old man's answer was thoroughly characteristic of 
 him. 
 
 "Mention what you want of me, my dear," was all he 
 said. 
 
 "We were then passing a street in the neighborhood of 
 Portman Square. I was on the point of speaking again, 
 when the words Avere suspended on my lips. I saw my hus- 
 band. 
 
 He was just descending the steps of a house as if leaving 
 it after a visit. His eyes were on the ground : he did not 
 look up when the carriage passed. As the servant closed 
 the door behind him, I noticed that the number of the house 
 was Sixteen. At the next corner I saw the name of the 
 street. It was Vivian Place. 
 
 "Do you happen to know who lives at Number Sixteen 
 Vivian Place ?" I inquired of my companion. 
 
 Benjamin started. My question was certainly a strange 
 one, after what he had just said to me. 
 
 " No," he replied. " Why do you ask ?" 
 
 "I have just seen Eustace leaving that house." 
 
 " Well, my dear, and what of that ?" 
 
 " My mind is in a bad way, Benjamin. Every thing my 
 husband does that I don't understand rouses iny suspicion 
 now." 
 
 Benjamin lifted his withered old hands, and let them drop 
 on his knees again in mute lamentation over me. 
 
 " I tell you again," I went on, " my life is unendurable to 
 me. I won't answer for what I may do if I am left much 
 longer to live in doubt of the one man on earth whom I 
 love. You have had experience of the world. Suppose you 
 were shut out from Eustace's confidence, as I am ? Suppose 
 you were as fond of him as I am, and felt your position as 
 bitterly as I feel it what would you do ?" 
 
 The question was plain. Benjamin met it with a plain 
 answer.
 
 THE LAW AND TIIE LAIY. 45 
 
 " I think I should find my way, my dear, to some intimate 
 friend of your husband's," he said, " and make a few discreet 
 inquiries in that quarter first." 
 
 Some intimate friend of my husband's ? I considered with 
 myself. There was but one friend of his whom I knew of 
 my uncle's correspondent, Major Fitz-David. My heart beat 
 fast as the name recurred to my memory. Suppose I fol- 
 lowed Benjamin's advice ? Suppose I applied to Major Fitz- 
 David ? Even if he, too, refused to answer my questions, 
 my position would not be more helpless than it was no\v. 
 I determined to make the attempt. The only difficulty in 
 the way, so far, was to discover the Major's address. I had 
 given back his letter to Doctor Starkweather, at my uncle's 
 own request. I remembered that the address from which 
 the Major wrote was somewhere in London and I remem- 
 bered no more. 
 
 "Thank you, old friend; you have given me an idea al- 
 ready," I said to Benjamin. " Have you got a Directory in 
 your house ?" 
 
 "No, my dear," he rejoined, looking very much puzzled. 
 "But I can easily send out and borrow one." 
 
 "NVe returned to the villa. The servant was sent at once 
 to the nearest stationer's to borrow a Directory. She re- 
 turned with the book just as we sat down to dinner. Search- 
 ing for the Major's name under the letter F, I was startled 
 by a new discovery. 
 
 "Benjamin!" I said. "This is a strange coincidence. 
 Look here !" 
 
 He looked where I pointed. Major Fitz-David's address 
 was Number Sixteen Vivian Place the very house which I 
 had seen my husband leaving as we passed in the carriage ! 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 OX THE WAY TO THE MAJOR. 
 
 "YES," said Benjamin. "It is a coincidence certainly. 
 Still" 
 
 He stopped and looked at me. lie seemed a little doubt- 
 ful how J might receive what he had it in his mind to say 
 to me next.
 
 48 THE LAW AND TUB LADY. 
 
 " Go on," I said. 
 
 " Still, my dear, I see nothing suspicious in what has hap- 
 pened," he resumed. " To my mind it is quite natural that 
 your husband, being in London, should pay a visit to one of 
 his friends. And it's equally natural that -sve should pass 
 through Vivian Place on "our way back here. This seems 
 to be the reasonable view. What do you say?" 
 
 "I have told you already that my mind is in a bad way 
 about Eustace," I answered, "/"say there is some motive 
 at the bottom of his visit to Major Fitz-David. It is not an 
 ordinary call. I am firmly convinced it is not an ordinary 
 call!" 
 
 "Suppose we get on with our dinner?" said Benjamin, re- 
 signedly. "Here is a loin of mutton, my dear an ordinary 
 loin of mutton. Is there any thing suspicious in that ? Very 
 well, then. Show me you have confidence in the mutton ; 
 please eat. There's the wine, again. Xo mystery, Valeria, in 
 that claret I'll take my oath it's nothing but innocent juice 
 of the grape. If w-e can't believe in any thing else, let's 
 believe in juice of the grape. Your good health, my dear." 
 
 I adapted myself to the old man's genial humor as readily 
 as I could. We ate and we drank, and we talked of by-gone 
 days. For a little while I was almost happy in the com- 
 pany of my fatherly old friend. W"hy was I not old too ? 
 Why had I not done with love, with its certain miseries, its 
 transient delights, its cruel losses, its bitterly doubtful gains ? 
 The last autumn flowers in the window basked brightly in 
 the last of the autumn sunlight. Benjamin's little dog di- 
 gested his dinner in perfect comfort on the hearth. The par- 
 rot in the next house screeched his vocal accomplishments 
 cheerfully. I don't doubt that it is a great privilege to be 
 a human being. But may it not be the happier destiny to 
 be an animal or a plant? 
 
 The brief respite was soon over; all my anxieties came 
 back. I was once more a doubting, discontented, depressed 
 creature when I rose to say good-by. 
 
 "Promise, my dear, you will do nothing rash," said Ben- 
 jamin, as he opened the door for me. 
 
 "Is it rash to go to Major Fitz-David?" I asked. 
 
 "Yes if you go by yourself. You don't know Avhat sort 
 of man he is; you don't know how he may receive you. Let 
 me try first, and pave the way, as the saying is. Trust my
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. . 47 
 
 experience, my dear. In matters of this sort there is noth- 
 ing like paving the way." 
 
 I considered a moment. It was due to my good friend to 
 consider before I said No. 
 
 Keflection decided me on taking the responsibility, what- 
 ever it might be, upon my own shoulders. Good or bad, 
 C, compassionate or cruel, the Major was a man. A woman's 
 influence was the safest influence to trust with him, where 
 the end to be gained was such an end as I had in view. It 
 was not easy to say this to Benjamin without the danger of 
 mortifying him. I made an appointment with the old man 
 to call on me the next morning at the hotel, and talk the 
 matter over again. Is it very disgraceful to me to add that 
 I privately determined (if the thing could be accomplished) 
 to see Major Fitz-David in the interval? 
 
 "Do npthing rash, my dear. In your own interests, do 
 nothing rash !" 
 
 Those were Benjamin's last words when we parted for the 
 day. 
 
 I found Eustace waiting for me in our sitting-room at the 
 hotel. His spirits seemed to have revived since I had seen 
 him last. He advanced to meet me cheerfully, with an open 
 sheet of paper in his hand. 
 
 "My business is settled, Valeria, sooner than I had ex- 
 pected," he began, gayly. "Are your purchases all com- 
 pleted, fair lady ? Are you free too ?" 
 
 I had learned already (God help me !) to distrust his fits 
 of gayety. I asked, cautiously, 
 
 " Do you mean free for to-day ?" 
 
 "Free for to-day, and to-morrow, and next week, and next 
 month and next year too, for all I know to the contrary," 
 he answered, putting his arm boisterously round my waist. 
 " Look here !" 
 
 He lifted the open sheet of paper which I had noticed in 
 his hand, and held it for me to read. It was a telegram to 
 the sailing-master of the yacht, informing him that we had 
 arranged to return to Ramsgate that evening, and that we 
 should be ready to sail for the Mediterranean with the next 
 tide. 
 
 "I only waited for your return," said Eustace", " to send 
 the telegram to the office."
 
 48 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 He crossed the room as he spoke to ring the bell. I stop- 
 ped him." 
 
 " I am afraid I can't go to Ramsgate to-day," I said. 
 
 "Why not?" he asked, suddenly changing his tone, and 
 speaking sharply. 
 
 I dare say it will seem ridiculous to some people, but it is 
 really true that he shook my resolution to go to Major Fitz- 
 David when he put his arm round me. Even a mere passing 
 caress from him stole away my heart, and softly tempted me 
 to yield. But the ominous alteration in his tone made an- 
 other woman of me.. I felt once more, and felt more strong- 
 ly than ever, that in my critical position it was useless to 
 stand still, and worse than useless to draw back. 
 
 " I am sorry to disappoint you," I answered. " It is im- 
 possible for me (as I told you at Ramsgate) to be ready to 
 sail at a moment's notice. I want time." 
 
 " What for ?" 
 
 Not only his tone, but his look, when he put that second 
 question, jarred on every nerve in me. He roused in my 
 mind I can't tell how or why an angry sense of the indig- 
 nity that he had put upon his wife in marrying her under 
 a false name. Fearing that I should answer rashly, that I 
 shoulcj say something which my better sense might regret, 
 if I spoke at that moment, I said nothing. Women alone can 
 estimate what it cost me to be silent. And men alone can 
 understand how irritating my silence must have been to my 
 husband. 
 
 "You want time ?" he repeated. " I ask you again what 
 for ?" 
 
 My self-control, pushed to its extremest limits, failed me. 
 The rash reply flew out of my lips, like a bird set free from 
 a cage. 
 
 " I want time," I said, " to accustom myself to my right 
 name." 
 
 He suddenly stepped up to me with a dark look. 
 
 " What do you mean by your ' right name ?' " 
 
 " Surely you know," I answered. " I once thought I was 
 Mrs.Woodville. I have now discovered that I am Mrs. Mac- 
 allan." 
 
 He started back at the sound of his own name as if I had 
 struck him he started back, and turned so deadly pale that 
 I feared he was going to drop at my feet in a swoon. Oh,
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 49 
 
 ray tongue ! my tongue ! Why had I not controlled my 
 miserable, mischievous woman's tongue ! 
 
 " I didn't mean to alarm you, Eustace," I said. " I spoke 
 at random. Pray forgive me." 
 
 He waved his hand impatiently, as if my penitent words 
 were tangible things ruffling, worrying things, like flies in 
 summer which he was putting away from him. 
 
 " What else have you discovered ?" he asked, in low, stern 
 tones. 
 
 " Nothing, Eustace." 
 
 "Nothing?" He paused as he repeated the word, and 
 passed his hand over his forehead in a weary way. " Noth- 
 ing, of course," he resumed, speaking to himself, " or she 
 would not be here." He paused once more, and looked at 
 me searchingly. " Don't say again what you said just now," 
 he went on. " For your own sake, Valeria, as well as for 
 mine." He dropped into the nearest chair, and said no 
 more. 
 
 I certainly heard the warning ; but the only words which 
 really produced an impression on my mind were the words 
 preceding it, which he had spoken to himself. He had said : 
 " Nothing, of course, or she would not be here." If I had 
 found out some other truth besides the truth about the 
 name, would it have prevented me from ever returning to 
 my husband ? Was that what he meant ? Did the sort of 
 discovery that he contemplated mean something so dreadful 
 that it would have parted us at once and forever ? I stood 
 by his chair in silence, and tried to find the answer to those 
 terrible questions in his face. It used to speak to me so elo- 
 quently when it spoke of his love. It told me nothing now. 
 
 He sat for some time without looking at me, lost in his 
 own thoughts. Then he rose on a sudden and took his hat. 
 
 " The friend who lent me the yacht is in town," he said. 
 " I suppose I had better see him, and say our plans are 
 changed." He tore up the telegram with an air of sullen 
 resignation as he spoke. " You are evidently determined 
 not to go to sea with me," he resumed. "We had better 
 give it up. I don't see what else is to be done. Do you ?" 
 
 His tone -\vas almost a tone of contempt. I was too de- 
 pressed about myself, too alarmed about him, to resent it. 
 
 "Decide as you think best, Eustace," I said, sadly. " Kvory 
 \s ay, l lie prospect seems a hopeless one. As long as I am 
 0-
 
 50 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 shut out from your confidence, it matters little whether we 
 live on land or at sea we can not live happily." 
 
 " If you could control your curiosity," he answered, stern- 
 ly, " we might live happily enough. I thought I had mar- 
 ried a woman who was superior to the vulgar failings of her 
 sex. A good wife should know better than to pry into af- 
 fairs of her husband's with which she had no concern." 
 
 Surely it was hard to bear this ? However, I bore it. 
 
 "Is it no concern of mine ?" I asked, gently, " when I find 
 that my husband has not married me under his family name ? 
 Is it no concern of mine when I hear your mother say, in so 
 many words, that she pities your wife ? It is hard, Eustace, 
 to accuse me of curiosity because I can not accept the unen- 
 durable position in which you have placed me. Your cruel 
 silence is a blight on my happiness, and a threat to my fut- 
 ure. Your cruel silence is estranging us from each other at 
 the beginning of our married life. And you blame me for 
 feeling this ? You tell me I am prying into affairs which are 
 yours only ? They are not yours only : I have my interest 
 in them too. Oh, my darling, why do you trifle with our 
 love and our confidence in each other ? Why do you keep 
 me in the dark ?" 
 
 He answered with a stern and pitiless brevity, 
 
 " For your own good." 
 
 I turned away from him in silence. He was treating me 
 like a child. 
 
 He followed me. Putting one hand heavily on my shoul- 
 der, he forced me to face him once more. 
 
 " Listen to this," he said. " What I am now going to say 
 to you I say for the first and last time. Valeria ! if you ever 
 discover what I am now keeping from your knowledge from 
 that moment you live a life of torture; your tranquillity is 
 gone. Your days will be days of terror ; your nights will 
 be full of horrid dreams through no fault of mine, mind ! 
 through no fault of mine ! Every day of your life you will 
 feel some new distrust, some growing fear of me, and you 
 will be doing me the vilest injustice all the time. On my 
 faith as a Christian, on my honor as a man, if you stir a step 
 further in this matter, there is an end to your happiness for 
 the rest of your life ! Think seriously of what I have said to 
 you ; you will have time to reflect. I am going to tell my 
 friend that our plans for the Mediterranean are given np. I
 
 THE LAW AND TIJK LADY. 51 
 
 shall not be back before the evening." He sighed, and look- 
 ed at me with unutterable sadness. "I love you, Valeria," 
 he said. " In spite of all that has passed, as God is my wit- 
 ness, I love you more dearly than ever." - 
 
 So he spoke. So he left me. 
 
 I must write the truth about myself, however strange it 
 may appear. I don't pretend to be able to analyze my own 
 motives ; I don't pretend even to guess how other women 
 might have acted in my place. It is true of me, that my hus- 
 band's terrible warning all the more terrible in its mystery 
 and its vagueness produced no deterrent effect on my mind : 
 it only stimulated my resolution to discover what he was 
 hiding from me. He had not been gone two minutes before 
 I rang the bell and ordered the carriage, to take me to Major 
 Fitz-David's house in Vivian Place. 
 
 Walking to and fro while I was waiting I was in such a 
 fever of excitement that it was impossible for me to sit still 
 I accidentally caught sight of myself in the glass. 
 
 My own face startled me, it looked so haggard and so 
 wild. Could I present myself to a stranger, could I hope to 
 produce the necessary impression in my favor, looking as I 
 looked at that moment ? For all I knew to the contrary, my 
 whole future might depend upon the effect which I produced 
 on Major Fitz-David at first sight. I rang the bell again, 
 and sent a message to one of the chambermaids to follow 
 me to my room. 
 
 I had no maid of my own with me : the stewardess of the 
 yacht would have acted as my attendant if we had held to 
 our first arrangement. It mattered little, so long as I had 
 a woman to help me. The chambermaid appeared. I can 
 give no better idea of the disordered and desperate condi- 
 tion of my mind at that time than by owning that I actu- 
 ally consulted this perfect stranger on the question of my 
 personal appearance. She was a middle-aged woman, with 
 a large experience of the world and its wickedness written 
 legibly on her manner and on her face. I put money into 
 the woman's hand, enough of it to surprise her. She thanked 
 me with a cynical smile, evidently placing her own evil in- 
 terpretation on my motive for bribing her. 
 
 " What can I do for you, ma'am ?" she asked, in a confi- 
 dential whisper. "Don't speak loud ! there is somebody in 
 the next room."
 
 52 THE LAW AXD THE LADY. 
 
 " I want to look my best," I said, " and I have sent for 
 you to help me." 
 
 " I understand, ma'am." 
 
 " What do you understand ?" 
 
 She nodded her head significantly, and whispered to me 
 again. " Lord bless you, I'm used to this !" she said. " There 
 is a gentleman in the case. Don't mind me, ma'am. It's a 
 way I have. I mean no harm." She stopped, and looked at 
 me critically. " I wouldn't change my dress if I were you," 
 she went on. "The color becomes you." 
 
 It was too late to resent the woman's impertinence. There 
 was no help for it but to make use of her. Besides, she was 
 right about the dress. It was of a delicate maize-color, pret- 
 tily trimmed with lace. I could wear nothing which suited 
 me better. My hair, however, stood in need of some skilled 
 attention. The chambermaid rearranged it with a ready 
 hand which showed that she was no beginner in the art of 
 dressing hair. She laid down the combs and brushes, and 
 looked at me ; then looked at the toilet-table, searching for 
 something which she apparently failed to find. 
 
 " Where do you keep it ?" she asked. 
 
 " What do you mean ?" 
 
 "Look at your complexion, ma'am. You will frighten him 
 if he sees you like that. A touch of color you must have. 
 Where do you keep it ? What ! you haven't got it ? you 
 never use it ? Dear, dear, dear me !" 
 
 For a moment surprise fairly deprived her of her self-pos- 
 session. Recovering herself, she begged permission to leave 
 me for a minute. I let her go, knowing what her errand was. 
 She came back with a box of paint and powders; and I said 
 nothing to check her. I saw, in the glass, my skin take a 
 false fairness, my cheeks a false color, my eyes a false bright- 
 ness and I never shrank from it. No ! I let the odious con- 
 ceit go on ; I even admired the extraordinary delicacy and . 
 dexterity with which it was all done. "Any thing" (I 
 thought to myself, in the madness of that miserable time), 
 "so long as it helps me to win the Major's confidence ! Any 
 thing, so long as I discover what those last words of my hus- 
 band's really mean !" 
 
 The transformation of my face was accomplished. The 
 chambermaid pointed with her wicked forefinger in the di- 
 rection of the glass.
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 53 
 
 "Bear in mind, ma'am, what you looked like when you 
 sent for me," she said. "And just see for yourself how you 
 look now. You're the prettiest woman (of your style) in 
 London. Ah, what a thing pearl-powder i?, when one knows 
 how to use it !" 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE FKIEND OF THE WOMEX. 
 
 I FIND it impossible to describe my sensations while the 
 carnage was taking me to Major Fitz-David's house. I 
 doubt, indeed, if I really felt or thought at all, in the true 
 sense of those words. 
 
 From the moment when I had resigned myself into the 
 hands of the chambermaid I seemed in some strange way to 
 have lost my ordinary identity to have stepped out of my 
 own character. At other times my temperament was of the 
 nervous and anxious sort, and my tendency was to exagger- 
 ate any difficulties that might place themselves in my way. 
 At other times, having before me the prospect of a critical 
 interview with a stranger,! should have considered with my- 
 self what it might be wise to pass over, and what it might 
 be wise to say. Now I never gave my coming interview 
 with the major a thought; I felt an unreasoning confidence 
 in mvself, and a blind faith in him. Xow neither the past 
 nor the future troubled me ; I lived unreflectingly in the 
 present. I looked at the shops as we drove by them, and 
 at the other carriages as they passed mine. I noticed yes, 
 and enjoyed the glances of admiration which chance foot- 
 passengers on the pavement cast on me. I said to myself, 
 "This looks well for my prospect of making a friend of the 
 Major!" When we drew up at the door in Vivian Place, it 
 is no exaggeration to say that I had but one anxiety anx- 
 iety to find the Major at home. 
 
 The door was opened by a servant out of livery, an old man 
 who looked as if he might have been a soldier in his earlier 
 <l:iy>. He eyed me with a grave attention, which relaxed little 
 by little into sly approval. I asked for Major Fitz-David. 
 The answer was not altogether encouraging: the man was 
 nut sure whether his master were at home or not.
 
 54 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 I gave him my card. My cards, being part of my wedding 
 outfit, necessarily had the false name printed on them J/?x 
 Eustace Woodville. The servant showed me into a front room 
 on the ground-floor, and disappeared with my card in his hand. 
 
 Looking about me, I noticed a door in the wall opposite 
 the window, communicating with some inner room. The 
 door was not of the ordinary kind. It fitted into the thick- 
 ness of the partition wall, and worked in grooves. Looking 
 a little nearer, I saw that it had not been pulled out so as 
 completely to close the doorway. Only the merest chink 
 was left ; but it was enough to convey to my ears all that 
 passed in the next room. 
 
 " What did you say, Oliver, when she asked for me ?" in- 
 quired a man's voice, pitched cautiously in a low key. 
 
 "I said I was not sure you were at home, sir," answered 
 the voice of the servant who had let me in. 
 
 There was a pause. The first speaker was evidently Major 
 Fitz-David himself. I waited to hear more. 
 
 "I think I had better not see her, Oliver," the Major's 
 voice resumed. 
 
 " Very good, sir." 
 
 " Say I have gone out, and you don't know when I shall 
 be back again. Beg the lady to write, if she has any busi- 
 ness with me." 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 " Stop, Oliver !" 
 
 Oliver stopped. There was another and longer pause. 
 Then the master resumed the examination of the man. 
 
 "Is she young, Oliver?" 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 " And pretty ?" 
 
 "Better than pretty, sir, to my thinking." 
 
 "Aye? aye? What you call a fine woman eh, Oliver?" 
 
 " Certainly, sir." 
 
 "Tall?" 
 
 " Nearly as tall as I am, Major." 
 
 " Aye ? aye ? aye ? . A good figure ?" 
 
 " As slim as a sapling, sir, and as upright as a dart." 
 
 " On second thoughts, I am at home, Oliver. Show her 
 in ! show her in !" 
 
 So far, one thing at least seemed to be clear. I had done 
 well in sending for the chambermaid. What would Oliver's
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 55 
 
 report of me have been if I had presented myself to him with 
 my colorless cheeks and my ill-dressed hair? 
 
 The servant reappeared, and conducted me to the inner 
 room. Major Fitz-David advanced to welcome me. What 
 was the Major like ? 
 
 Well, he was like a well-preserved old gentleman of, say, 
 sixty years old, little and lean, and chiefly remarkable by the 
 extraordinary length of his nose. After this feature, I noticed 
 next his beautiful brown wig; his sparkling little gray eyes; 
 his rosy complexion; his short military whisker, dyed to 
 match his wig; his white teeth and his winning smile; his 
 smart blue frock'-coat, with a camellia in the button-hole ; 
 and his splendid ring, a ruby, flashing on his little finger as 
 he courteously signed to me to take a chair. 
 
 "Dear Mrs. Woodville, how very kind of you this is! I 
 have been longing to have the happiness of knowing you. 
 Eustace is an old friend of mine. I congratulated him when 
 I heard of his marriage. May I make a confession ? I envy 
 him now I have seen his wife." 
 
 The future of my life was perhaps in this man's hands. I 
 studied him attentively ; I tried to read his character in his 
 face. 
 
 The Major's sparkling little gray eyes softened as they 
 looked at me ; the Major's strong and sturdy voice dropped 
 to its lowest and tenderest tones when he spoke to me ; the 
 Major's manner expressed, from the moment when I entered 
 the room, a happy mixture of admiration and respect. He 
 drew his chair close to mine, as if it were a privilege to be 
 near me. He took my hand and lifted my glove to his lips, 
 as if that glove were the most delicious luxury the world 
 could produce. " Dear Mrs. Woodville," he said, as he softly 
 laid my hand back on my lap, " bear with an old fellow who 
 worships your enchanting sex. You really brighten this 
 dull house. It is such a pleasure to see you !" 
 
 There was no need for the old gentleman to make his little 
 confession. Women, children, and dogs proverbially know 
 by instinct who the people are who really like them. The 
 women had a warm friend perhaps at one time a danger- 
 ously warm friend in Major Fitz-David. I knew as much 
 of him as that before I had settled myself in my chair and 
 opened my lips to answer him. 
 
 " Thank you, Major, for your kind reception and your
 
 56 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 pretty compliment," I said, matching my host's easy tone as 
 closely as the necessary restraints on my side would permit. 
 " You have made your confession. May I make mine ?" 
 
 Major Fitz-David lifted my hand again from my lap and 
 drew his chair as close as possible to mine. I looked at him 
 gravely and tried to release my hand. Major Fitz-David 
 declined to let go of it, and proceeded to tell me why. 
 
 "I have just heard you speak for the first time," he said. 
 " I am under the charm of your voice. Dear Mrs. Woodville, 
 bear with an old fellow who is under the charm ! Don't 
 grudge me my innocent little pleasures. Lend me I wish I 
 could say give me this pretty hand. I am such an admirer 
 of pretty hands ! I can listen so much better with a pretty 
 hand in mine. The ladies indulge my weakness. Please 
 indulge me too. Yes? And what were you going to say?" 
 
 " I was going to say, Major, that I felt particularly sensible 
 of your kind welcome because, as it happens, I have a favor 
 to ask of you." 
 
 I was conscious, while I spoke, that I was approaching the 
 object of my visit a little too abruptly. But Major Fitz- 
 David's admiration rose from one climax to another with 
 such alarming rapidity that I felt the importance of admin- 
 istering a practical check to it. I trusted to those ominous 
 words, " a favor to ask of you," to administer the check, and I 
 did not trust in vain. My aged admirer gently dropped my 
 hand, and, with all possible politeness, changed the subject. 
 
 "The favor is granted, of course!" he said. "And now, 
 tell me, how is our dear Eustace?" 
 
 " Anxious and out of spirits," I answered. 
 
 "Anxious and out of spirits !" repeated the Major. "The 
 enviable man who is married to You anxious and out of spir- 
 its? Monstrous ! Eustace fairly disgusts me. I shall take 
 him off the list of my friends." 
 
 "In that case, take me off the list with him, Major. I am 
 in wretched spirits too. You are my husband's old friend. I 
 may acknowledge to you that our married life is just now 
 not quite a happy one." 
 
 Major Fitz-David lifted his eyebrows (dyed to match his 
 Avhiskers) : ^v polite surprise. 
 
 " Already !" he exclaimed. " What can Eustace be made 
 of? Has he no appreciation of beauty and grace ? Is he the 
 most insensible of living beings?"
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 57 
 
 "He is the best and dearest of men," I answered. " But 
 there is some dreadful mystery in his past life " 
 
 I could get no farther ; Major Fitz-David deliberately 
 stopped me. He did it with the smoothest politeness, on the 
 surface. But I saw a look in his bright little eyes which 
 said, plainly, " If you will venture on delicate ground, madam, 
 don't ask me to accompany you." 
 
 u My charming friend !" he exclaimed. " May I call you 
 my charming friend? You have among a thousand other 
 delightful qualities which I can see already a vivid imagina- 
 tion. Don't let it get the upper hand. Take an old fellow's 
 advice ; don't let it get the upper hand ! What can I offer 
 you, dear Mrs. Woodville ? A cup of tea ?" 
 
 " Call me by my right name, sir," I answered, boldly. " I 
 have made a discovery. I know as well as you do that my 
 name is Macallan." 
 
 The Major started, and looked at me very attentively. 
 His manner became grave, his tone changed completely, 
 when he spoke next. 
 
 'May I ask," he said, "if you have communicated to your 
 husband the discovery which you have just mentioned to 
 me?" 
 
 "Certainly!" I answered. "I consider that my husband 
 owes me an explanation. I have asked him to tell me what 
 his extraordinary conduct means and he has refused, in lan- 
 guage that frightens me. I have appealed to his mother 
 and she has refused to explain, in language that humiliates 
 me. Dear Major Fitz-David, I have no friends to take my 
 part : I have nobody to come to but you ! Do me the great- 
 est of all favors tell me why your friend Eustace has mar- 
 ried me under a false name !" 
 
 "Do me the greatest of all favor?," answered the Major. 
 "Don't ask me to say a word about it." 
 
 He looked, in spite of his unsatisfactory reply, as if he 
 really felt for me. I determined to try my utmost powers 
 of persuasion ; I resolved not to be beaten at the first repulse-. 
 
 "I must ask you," I said. "Think of my position. How 
 can I live, knowing what I know and knowing no more? 
 I would rather hear the most horrible thing youN-an tell me 
 than be condemned (as I am now) to perpetual misgiving 
 and perpetual suspense. I love my husband with all my 
 heart ; but I can not live with him on these terms : the mis- 
 C 2
 
 58 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 ery of it would drive me mad. I am only a woman, Major. 
 I can only throw myself on your kindness. Don't pray, 
 pray don't keep me in the dark !" 
 
 I could say no more. In the reckless impulse of the mo- 
 ment I snatched up his hand and raised it to my lips. The 
 gallant old gentleman started as if I had given him an electric 
 shock. 
 
 " My dear, dear lady !" he exclaimed, " I can't tell you how 
 I feel for you ! You charm me, you overwhelm me, you touch 
 me to the heart. What can I say ? What can I do ? I can 
 only imitate your admirable frankness, your fearless candor. 
 You have told me what your position is. Let me tell you, 
 in my turn, how I am placed. Compose yourself pray com- 
 pose yourself! I have a smelling-bottle here at the service 
 of the ladies. Permit me to offer it." 
 
 He brought me the smelling-bottle ; he put a little stool 
 under my feet ; he entreated me to take time enough to com- 
 pose myself. " Infernal fool !" I heard him say to himself, as 
 he considerately turned away from me for a few moments. 
 "If I had been her husband, come what might of it, I would 
 have told her the truth !" 
 
 Was he referring to Eustace ? And was he going to do 
 what he would have done in my husband's place ? was he 
 really going to tell me the truth ? 
 
 The idea had barely crossed my mind when I was startled 
 by a loud and peremptory knocking at the street door. The 
 Major stopped and listened attentively. In a few moments 
 the door was opened, and the rustling of a woman's dress 
 was plainly audible in the hall. The Major hurried to the 
 door of the room with the activity of a young man. He 
 was too late. The door was violently opened from the outer 
 side, just as he got to it. The lady of the rustling dress 
 burst into the room. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE DEFEAT OF THE MAJOR. 
 
 MAJOR FITZ-DAVID'S visitor proved, to be a plump, round- 
 eyed, overdressed girl, with a florid complexion and straw- 
 colored hair. After first fixing on me a broad stare of as-
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 59 
 
 tonishment, she pointedly addressed her apologies for in- 
 truding on us to the Major alone. The creature evidently 
 believed me to be the last new object of the old gentleman's 
 idolatry ; and she took no pains to disguise her jealous re- 
 sentment on discovering us together. Major Fitz-David set 
 matters right in his own irresistible way. He kissed the 
 hand of the overdressed girl as devotedly as he had kissed 
 mine ; he told her she was looking charmingly. Then he 
 led her, with his happy mixture of admiration and respect, 
 back to the door by which she had entered a second door 
 communicating directly with the hall. 
 
 "Xo apology is necessary, my dear," he said. "This lady 
 is with me on a matter of business. You will find your sing- 
 ing-master waiting for you up-stairs. Begin your lesson ; 
 and I will join you in a few minutes. Ait revolt', my charm- 
 ing pupil au revoir." 
 
 The young lady answered this polite little speech in a 
 whisper with her round eyes fixed distrustfully on me while 
 she spoke. The door closed on her. Major Fitz-David was 
 at liberty to set matters right with me, in my turn. 
 
 "I call that young person one of my happy discoveries," 
 said the old gentleman, complacently. "She possesses, I 
 don't hesitate to say, the finest soprano voice in Europe. 
 Would you believe it, I met with her at the railway station. 
 She was behind the counter in a refreshment-room, poor in- 
 nocent, rinsing wine-glasses, and singing over her work. 
 Good Heavens, such singing ! Her upper notes electrified 
 me. I said to myself, 'Here is a born prima donna I will 
 bring her out !' She is the third I have brought out in my 
 time. I shall take her to Italy when her education is suf- 
 ficiently advanced, and perfect her at Milan. In that un- 
 sophisticated girl, my dear lady, you see one of the future 
 Queens of Song. Listen! She is beginning her scales. What 
 a voice ! Brava ! Brava ! Bravissima !" 
 
 The high soprano notes of the future Queen of Song rang 
 through the house as he spoke. Of the loudness of the 
 young lady!s voice there could be no sort of doubt. The 
 sweetness and the purity of it admitted, in my opinion, of 
 considerable dispute. 
 
 Having said the polite words which the occasion rendered 
 necessary, I ventured to recall Major Fitz-David to the sub- 
 ject in discussion between us when his visitor had entered
 
 60 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 the room. The Major was very unwilling to return to the 
 perilous topic on which we had just touched when the in- 
 terruption occurred. He beat time with his forefinger to 
 the singing up -stairs; he asked me about my voice, and 
 whether I sang ; he remarked that life would be intolerable 
 to him without Love and Art. A man in my place would 
 have lost all patience, and would have given up the struggle 
 in disgust. Being a woman, and having my end in view, my 
 resolution was invincible. I fairly wore out the Major's re- 
 sistance, and compelled him to surrender at discretion. It is 
 only justice to add that, when he did make up his mind 
 to speak to me again of Eustace, he spoke frankly, and spoke 
 to the point, 
 
 "I have known your husband," he began, "since the time 
 when he was a boy. At a certain period of his past life a 
 terrible misfortune fell upon him. The secret of that mis- 
 fortune is known to his friends, and is religiously kept by 
 his friends. It is the secret that he is keeping from You. 
 He will never tell it to you as long as he lives. And he 
 has bound me not to tell it, under a promise given on my 
 word of honor. You wished, dear Mrs. Woodville, to be 
 made acquainted with my position toward Eustace. There 
 it is S" 
 
 " You persist in calling me Mrs. Woodville," I said. 
 
 "Your husband wishes me to persist," the Major answer- 
 ed. "He assumed the name of Woodville, fearing to give 
 his own name, when he first calle'd at your uncle's house. 
 He will now acknowledge no other. Remonstrance is use- 
 less. You must do what we do you must give -way to an 
 unreasonable man. The best fellow in the world in other 
 respects: in this one matter as obstinate and self-willed as 
 he can be. If you ask me my opinion, I tell you honestly 
 that I think he was wrong in courting and marrying you 
 under his false name. He trusted his honor and his happi- 
 ness to your keeping in making you his wife. Why should 
 he not trust the story of his troubles to you as well ? His 
 mother quite shares my opinion in this matter. You must 
 not blame her for refusing to admit you into her confidence 
 after your marriage: it was then too late. Before your 
 marriage she did all she could do without betraying secrets 
 which, as a good mother, she was bound to respect to in- 
 duce her son to act justly toward you. I commit no indis-
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. Cl 
 
 crction when I tell you that she refused to sanction your 
 marriage- mainly for the reason that Eustace refused to fol- 
 low her advice, and to tell you what his position really was. 
 On my part I did all I could to support Mrs. Macallan in the 
 course that she took. When Eustace wrote to tell me that 
 he had engaged himself to marry a niece of my good friend 
 Doctor Starkweather, and that he had mentioned me as his 
 reference, I wrote back to warn him that I would have noth- 
 ing to do with the affair unless he revealed the whole truth 
 about himself to his future wife. lie refused to listen to me, 
 as he had refused to listen to his mother; and he held me at 
 the same time to my promise to keep his secret. When 
 Starkweather wrote to me, I had no choice but to involve 
 myself in a deception of which I thoroughly disapproved, or 
 to answer in a tone so guarded and so brief as to stop the 
 correspondence at the outset. I chose the last alternative ; 
 and I fear I have offended my good old friend. You now 
 see the painful position in which I am placed. To add to 
 the difficulties of that situation, Eustace came here this very 
 day to warn me to be on my guard, in case of your address- 
 ing to me the very request which you have just made ! He 
 told me that you had met with his mother, by an unlucky 
 accident, and that you had discovered the family name. Ho 
 declared that he had traveled to London for the express pur- 
 pose of speaking to me personally on this serious subject. 
 'I know your weakness,' he said, 'where women are concern- 
 ed. Valeria is aware that you are my old friend. She will 
 certainly write to you ; she may even be bold enough to 
 make her way into your house. Renew your promise to 
 keep the great calamity of my life a secret, on your honor 
 and on your oath.' Those were his words, as nearly as I can 
 remember them. I tried to treat the thing lightly; I ridi- 
 culed the absurdly theatrical notion of ' renewing my prom- 
 ise,' and all the rest of it. Quite useless ! He refused to 
 leave me ; he reminded me of his unmerited sufferings, poor 
 fellow, in the past time. It ended in his bursting into tears. 
 You love him, and so do I. Can you wonder that I let him 
 have his way? The result is that I am doubly bound to 
 tell yon nothing, by the most sacred promise that a man can 
 give. My dear lady, I cordially side with you in this matter ; 
 I long to relieve your anxieties. I>ut what can I do?" 
 He stopped, and waited gravely waited to hear my reply.
 
 62 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 I had listened from beginning to end without interrupting 
 him. The extraordinary change in his manner, and in his 
 way of expressing himself, while he was speaking of Eustace, 
 alarmed me as nothing had alarmed me yet. How terrible 
 (I thought to myself) must this untold story be, if the mere 
 act of referring to it makes light-hearted Major Fitz-David 
 speak seriously and sadly, never smiling, never paying me a 
 compliment, never even noticing the singing up-stairs ! My 
 heart sank in me as I drew that startling conclusion. For 
 the first time since I had entered the house I was at the end 
 of my resources; I knew neither what to say nor what to do 
 next. 
 
 And yet I kept my seat. Never had the resolution to dis- 
 cover what my husband was hiding from me been more firm- 
 ly rooted in my mind than it was at that moment ! I can 
 not account for the extraordinary inconsistency in my char- 
 acter which this confession implies. I can only describe the 
 facts as they really were. 
 
 The singing went on up-stairs. Major Fitz-David still 
 waited impenetrably to hear what I had to say to know 
 what I resolved on doing next. 
 
 Before I had decided what to say or what to do, another 
 domestic incident happened. In plain words, another knock- 
 ing announced a new visitor at the house door. On this oc- 
 casion there was no rustling of a woman's dress in the hall. 
 On this occasion only the old servant entered the room, car- 
 rying a magnificent nosegay in his hand. "With Lady Cla- 
 rinda's kind regards. To remind Major Fitz-David of his 
 appointment." Another lady ! This time a lady with a title. 
 A great lady who sent her flowers and her messages without 
 condescending to concealment. The Major first apologizing 
 to me wrote a few lines of acknowledgment, and sent them 
 out to the messenger. When the door was closed again he 
 carefully selected one of the choicest flowers in the nosegay. 
 "May I ask," he said, presenting the flower to me with his 
 best grace, " whether you now understand the delicate posi- 
 tion in which I am placed between your husband and your- 
 self?" 
 
 The little interruption caused by the appearance of the 
 nosegay had given a new impulse to my thoughts, and had 
 thus helped, in some degree, to restore me to myself. I was 
 able at last to satisfy Major Fitz-David that his considerate
 
 THE LAW AXD THE LADY. 63 
 
 and courteous explanation had not been thrown away upon 
 me. 
 
 "I thank you, most sincerely, Major," I said. "You have 
 convinced me that I must not ask you to forget, on my ac- 
 count, the promise which you have given to my husband. It 
 is a sacred promise, which I too am bound to respect I 
 quite understand that." 
 
 The Major drew a long breath of relief, and patted me on 
 the shoulder in high approval of what I had said to him. 
 
 "Admirably expressed !" he rejoined, recovering his light- 
 hearted looks and his lover-like ways all in a moment. "My 
 dear lady, you have the gift of sympathy ; you see exactly 
 how I am situated. Do you know, you remind me of my 
 charming Lady Clarinda. She has the gift of sympathy, and 
 sees exactly how I am situated. I should so enjoy introduc- 
 ing you to each other," said the Major, plunging his long 
 nose ecstatically into Lady Clarinda's flowers. 
 
 I had my end still to gain ; and, being (as you will have 
 discovered by this time) the most obstinate of living women, 
 I still kept that end in view. 
 
 "I shall be delighted to meet Lady Clarinda," I replied. 
 "In the mean time " 
 
 " I will get up a little dinner," proceeded the Major, with a 
 burst of enthusiasm. "You and I and Lady Clarinda. Our 
 young prima donna shall come in the evening, and sing to us. 
 Suppose we draw out the menu? My sweet friend, what is 
 your favorite autumn soup?" 
 
 " In the mean time," I persisted, " to return to what we 
 were speaking of just now " 
 
 The Major's smile vanished ; the Major's hand dropped 
 the pen destined to immortalize the name of my favorite 
 autumn soup. 
 
 " Must we return to that ?" he asked, piteously. 
 
 " Only for a moment," I said. 
 
 " You remind me," pursued Major Fitz-David, shaking his 
 head sadly, " of another charming friend of mine a French 
 friend Madame Mirliflore. You are a person of prodigious 
 tenacity of purpose. Madame Mirliflore is a person of pro- 
 digious tenacity of purpose. She happens to be in London. 
 Shall we have her at our little dinner?" The Major bright- 
 ened at the idea, and took up the pen again. " Do tell me," 
 he said, " what is your favorite autumn soup ?"
 
 G4 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 "Pardon me," I began, " we were speaking just now " 
 
 " Oh, dear me !" cried Major Fitz-David. " Is this the 
 other subject?" 
 
 " Yes this is the other subject." 
 
 The Major put down his pen for the second time, and re- 
 gretfully dismissed from his mind Madame Mirliflore and the 
 autumn soup. 
 
 " Yes ?" he said, with a patient bow and a submissive smile. 
 " You were going to say " 
 
 "I was going to say," I rejoined, "that your promise only 
 pledges you not to tell the secret which my husband is keep- 
 ing from me. You have given no promise not to answer me 
 if I venture to ask you one or two questions." 
 
 Major Fitz-David held up his hand warningly, and cast a 
 sly look at me out of his bright little gray eyes. 
 
 " Stop !" he said. " My sweet friend, stop there ! I know 
 where your questions will lead me, and what the result will 
 be if I once begin to answer them. When your husband was 
 here to-day he took occasion to remind me that I was as 
 weak as water in the hands of a pretty woman. He is quite 
 right. I am as weak as water; I can refuse nothing to a 
 pretty woman. Dear and admirable lady, don't abuse your 
 influence ! don't make an old soldier false to his word of 
 honor !" 
 
 I tried to say something here in defense of my motives. 
 The Major clasped his hands entreatingly, and looked at me 
 with a pleading simplicity wonderful to see. 
 
 " Why press it ? w he asked. " I offer no resistance. I am 
 a lamb why sacrifice me? I acknowledge your power; I 
 throw myself on your mercy. All the misfortunes of my 
 youth and my manhood have come to me through women. 
 I am not a bit better in my age I am just as fond of the 
 women and just as ready to be misled by them as ever, with 
 one foot in the grave. Shocking, isn't it? But how true ! 
 Look at this mark !" He lifted a curl of his beautiful brown 
 wig, and showed me a terrible scar at the side of his head. 
 " That wound (supposed to be mortal at the time) was made 
 by a pistol bullet," he proceeded. " Not received in the serv- 
 ice of my country oh dear, no ! Received in the service of 
 a much-injured lady, at the hands of her scoundrel of a hus- 
 band, in a duel abroad. Well, she was worth it." He kissed 
 his hand affectionately to the memory of the dead or absent
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADV. 05 
 
 lady, and pointed to a water-color drawing of a pretty coun- 
 try-house hanging on the opposite wall. " That fine estate," 
 he proceeded, "once belonged to me. It was sold years and 
 years since. And who had the money ? The women God 
 bless them all ! the women. I don't regret it. If I had 
 another estate, I have no doubt it would go the same way. 
 Your adorable sex has made its pretty playthings of my life, 
 my time, and my money and welcome ! The one thing I 
 have kept to myself is my honor. And now that is in dan- 
 ger. Yes, if you put your clever little questions, with those 
 lovely eyes and with that gentle voice, I know what will 
 happen. You will deprive me of the last and best of all my 
 possessions. Have I deserved to be treated in that way, and 
 by you, my charming friend ? by you, of all people in the 
 world? Oh, fie! fie!" 
 
 He paused and looked at me as before the picture of art- 
 less entreaty, with his head a little on one side. I made an- 
 other attempt to speak of the matter in dispute between us, 
 from my own point of view. Major Fitz-David instantly threw 
 himself prostrate on my mercy more innocently than ever. 
 
 "Ask of me any thing else in the wide world," he said; 
 " but don't ask me to be false to my friend. Spare me that 
 and there is nothing I will not do to satisfy you. I mean 
 what I say, mind !" lie went on, bending closer to me, and 
 speaking more seriously than he had spoken yet. "I think 
 you are very hardly used. It is monstrous to expect that a 
 woman, placed in your situation, will consent to be left for 
 the rest of her life in the dark. Xo ! no ! if I saAv you, at 
 this moment, on the point of finding out for yourself what 
 Eustace persists in hiding from you, I should remember that 
 my promise, like all other promises, has its limits and re- 
 serves. I should consider myself bound in honor not to help 
 you but I would not lift a finger to prevent you from dis- 
 covering the truth for yourself.". 
 
 At last he was speaking in good earnest : he laid a strong 
 emphasis on his closing words. I laid a stronger emphasis 
 on them still by suddenly leaving my chair. The impulse 
 to spring to my feet was irresistible. Major Fitz-David had 
 started a new idea in my mind. 
 
 "Xow we understand each other !" I said. "I will accept 
 your own terms, Major. I will ask nothing of you but what 
 you have just offered to me of your own accord.''
 
 66 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 "What have I offered?" he inquired, looking a little 
 alarmed. 
 
 " Nothing that you need repent of," I answered ; " nothing 
 which is not easy for you to grant. May I ask a bold ques- 
 tion ? Suppose this house was mine instead of yours ?" 
 
 "Consider it yours," cried the gallant old gentleman. 
 " From the garret to the kitchen, consider it yours !" 
 
 "A thousand thanks, Major; I will consider it mine for 
 the moment. You know every body knows that one of a 
 woman's many weaknesses is curiosity. Suppose my cu- 
 riosity led me to examine every thing in my new house ?" 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 " Suppose I went from room to room, and searched every 
 thing, and peeped in every where? Do you think there 
 would be any chance " 
 
 The quick-witted Major anticipated the nature of my ques- 
 tion. He followed my example ; he too started to his feet, 
 with a new idea in his mind. 
 
 " Would there be any chance," I went on, " of my finding 
 my own way to my husband's secret in this house? One 
 word of reply, Major Fitz-David ! Only one word Yes or 
 No?" 
 
 "Don't excite yourself!" cried the Major. 
 
 " Yes or No ?" I repeated, more vehemently than ever. 
 
 " Yes," said the Major, after a moment's consideration. 
 
 It was the reply I had asked for ; but it was not explicit 
 enough, now I had got it, to satisfy me. I felt the necessity 
 of leading him (if possible) into details. 
 
 " Does ' Yes ' mean that there is some sort of clew to the 
 mystery?" I asked. "Something, for instance, which my eyes 
 might see and my hands might touch if I could only find it ?" 
 
 He considered again. I saw that I had succeeded in inter- 
 esting him in some way unknown to myself; and I waited 
 patiently until he was prepared to answer me. 
 
 "The thing you mention," he said, "the clew (as you call 
 it), might be seen and might be touched supposing you 
 could find it." 
 
 " In this house ?" I asked. 
 
 The Major advanced a step nearer to me, and answered, 
 
 " In this room." 
 
 My head began to swim ; my heart throbbed violently. I 
 tried to speak ; it was in vain ; the effort almost choked me.
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. G7 
 
 In the silence I could hear the music-lesson still going on in the 
 room above. The future priraa donna had done practicing 
 her scales, and was trying her voice now in selections from 
 Italian operas. At the moment when I first heard her she 
 was singing the beautiful air from the Somnambula, " Come 
 per me sereno." I never hear that delicious melody, to this 
 day, without being instantly transported in imagination to 
 the fatal back-room in Vivian Place. 
 
 The Major strongly affected himself by this time was 
 the first to break the silence. 
 
 " Sit down again," he said ; "and pray take the easy-chair. 
 You are very much agitated ; you want rest." 
 
 He was right. I could stand no longer; I dropped into 
 the chair. Major Fitz-David rang the bell, and spoke a few 
 words to the servant at the door. 
 
 " I have been here a long time," I said, faintly. " Tell me 
 if I am in the way." 
 
 "In the way?" he repeated, with his irresistible smile. 
 " You forget that you are in your own house !" 
 
 The servant returned to us, bringing with him a tiny bottle 
 of Champagne and a plateful of delicate little sugared biscuits. 
 
 "I have had this wine bottled expressly for the ladies," 
 said the Major. " The biscuits came to me direct from Paris. 
 As a favor to me, you must take some refreshment. And 
 then " He stopped, and looked at me very attentively. 
 " And then," he resumed, " shall I go to my young prima 
 donna up-stairs, and leave you here alone ?" 
 
 It was impossible to hint more delicately at the one request 
 which I now had it in my mind to make to him. I took his 
 hand and pressed it gratefully. 
 
 "The tranquillity of my whole life to come is at stake," I 
 said. "When I am left here by myself, does your generous 
 sympathy permit me to examine every thing in the room?" 
 
 He signed to me to drink the Champagne and eat a biscuit 
 before he gave his answer. 
 
 "This is serious," he said. "I wish you to be in perfect 
 possession of yourself. Restore your strength and then I 
 will speak to you." 
 
 I did as he bade me. In a minute from the time when I 
 drank it the delicious sparkling wine had begun to revive me. 
 
 " Is it your express wish," he resumed, " that I should leave 
 you here by yourself to search the room ?"
 
 68 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 " It is my express wish," I answered. 
 
 "I take a heavy responsibility on myself in granting your 
 request. But I grant it for all that, because I sincerely be- 
 lieve as you believe that the tranquillity of your life to 
 come depends on your discovering the truth." Saying those 
 words, he took two keys from his pocket. " You will natu- 
 rally feel a |spicion," he went on, " of any locked doors that 
 you may find here. The only locked places in the room are 
 the doors of the cupboards under the long book-case, and the 
 door of the Italian cabinet in that corner. The small key 
 opens the book-case cupboards; the long key opens the cab- 
 inet door." 
 
 With that explanation, he laid the keys before me on the 
 table. 
 
 " Thus far," he said, " I have rigidly respected the promise 
 which I made to your husband. I shall continue to be faith- 
 ful to my promise, whatever may be the result of your ex- 
 amination of the room. I am bound in honor not to assist 
 you by word or deed. I am not even at liberty to offer you 
 the slightest hint. Is that understood?" 
 
 " Certainly !" 
 
 " Very good. I have now a last word of warning to give 
 you and then I have done. If you do by any chance suc- 
 ceed in laying your hand on the clew, remember this the 
 discovery which follows icitt be a terrible one. If you have 
 any doubt about your capacity to sustain a shock which will 
 strike you to the soul, for God's sake give up the idea of 
 finding out your husband's secret at once and forever !" 
 
 "I if hank you for your warning, Major. I must face the 
 consequences of making the discovery, whatever they may 
 be." 
 
 " You are positively resolved ?" 
 
 "Positively." 
 
 " Very well. Take any time you please. The house, and 
 every person in it, are at your disposal. Ring the bell once 
 if you want the man-servant. Ring twice if you wish the 
 house-maid to wait on you. From time to time I shall just 
 look in myself to see how you are going on. I am responsi- 
 ble for your comfort and security, you know, while you hon- 
 or me by remaining under my roof." 
 
 He lifted my hand to his lips, and fixed a last attentive 
 look on me.
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. G9 
 
 " I hope I am not running too great a risk," lie said more 
 to himself than to me. "The women have led me into many 
 a rash action in my time. Have you led me, I wonder, into 
 the rashest action of all?" 
 
 With those ominous last words he bowed gravely and lull 
 me alone in the room. 
 
 p 
 
 CHAPTER X.' 
 
 THE SEAKCIlJP 
 
 THE fire burning in the grate was not a very large one ; 
 and the outer air (as I had noticed on my way to the house) 
 had something of a wintry sharpness in it that day. 
 
 Still, my first feeling, when Major Fitz-David left me, was 
 a feeling of heat and oppression, with its natural result, a 
 difficulty in breathing freely. The nervous agitation of the 
 time was, I suppose, answerable for these sensations. I took 
 off my bonnet and mantle and gloves, and opened the win- 
 dow for a little while. Nothing was to be seen outside but 
 a paved court-yard, with a skylight in the middle, closed at 
 the farther end by the wall of the Major's stages. A few 
 minutes at the window cooled and refreshed me.' I shut it 
 down again, and took my first step on the way of discovery. 
 In other words, I began my first examination of the four 
 walls around me, and of all that they inclosed. 
 
 I was amazed at my own calmness. My interview with 
 Major Fitz-David had, perhaps, exhausted my capacity for 
 feeling any strong emotion, for the time at least. It was a 
 relief to me to be alone ; it was a relief to me to begin the 
 search. Those were my only sensations so far. 
 
 The shape of the room was oblong. Of the two shorter 
 walls, one contained the door in grooves which I have al- 
 ready mentioned as communicating with the front room; the 
 other was almost entirely occupied by the broad window 
 which looked out on the court-yard. 
 
 Taking the doorway Avail first, what was there, in the 
 shape of furniture, on either side of it? There Avas a card- 
 table on either side. Above each card-table stood a magnif- 
 icent china bowl, placed on a gilt and carved bracket fixed 
 to the Avail.
 
 
 
 70 THE LAW AXD THE LADY. 
 
 * I opened the card-tables. The drawers beneath contained 
 nothing Wit cards, and the usual counters and markers. With 
 the exception of one pack, the cards in both tables were still 
 wrapped in their paper covers exactly as they had come from 
 the shop, I examined the loose pack, card by card. No 
 writing, no mark of any kind, was visible on any one of 
 them. Assisted by a library ladder which stood against the 
 book-case, I looked next into the two china bowls. Both 
 were perfectly empty. "Was there any thing more to exam- 
 ine on that side of the room? In the two corners there were 
 two little chairs of inlaid wood, with red silk cushions. I 
 turned them up and looked under the cushions, and still I 
 made no discoveries. When I had put the chairs back in 
 their places ray search on one side of the room was com- 
 plete. So far rh,ad found nothing. 
 
 I crossed to the opposite wall, the wall which contained 
 the window. 
 
 The window (occupying, as I have said, almost the entire 
 length and height of the wall) was divided into three com- 
 partments, and was adorned at their extremity by handsome 
 curtains of dark red velvet. The ample heavy folds of the 
 velvet left just room at the two corpers of the wall for two 
 little upright cabinets in buhl, containing rows of drawers, 
 and supporting two fine bronze productions (reduced in size) 
 of the Venus Milo and the Venus Callipyge. I had Major 
 Fitz-David's permission to do just what I pleased. I opened 
 the six drawers in each cabinet, and examined their contents 
 without hesitation. 
 
 Beginning with the cabinet in the right-hand corner, my 
 investigations were soon completed. All the six drawers 
 were alike occupied by a collection of fossils, which (judging 
 by the curious paper inscriptions fixed "on some of them) 
 were associated with a past period of the Major's life when 
 lie had speculated, not very successfully, in mines. After 
 satisfying myself that the drawers contained nothing but 
 the fossils and their inscriptions, I turned to the cabinet in 
 the left-hand corner next. 
 
 Here a variety of objects was revealed to view, and the 
 examination accordingly occupied a much longer time. 
 
 The top drawer contained a complete collection of carpen- 
 ter's tools in miniature, relics probably of the far-distant time 
 when the Major was a boy, and when parents or friends had
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 71 
 
 made him a present of a set of toy tools. The second drawer 
 was filled with toys of another sort presents madfe to Ma- 
 jor Fitz-David by his fair friends. Embroidered braces, smart 
 smoking-caps, quaint pincushions, gorgeous slippers, glitter- 
 ing purses, all bore witness to the popularity of the friend of 
 the women. The contents of the third drawer were of a 
 less interesting sort : the entire space was filled with old ac- 
 count-books, ranging over a period of many years. After 
 looking into each book, and opening and shaking it useless- 
 ly, in search of any loose papers which might be hidden be- 
 tween the leaves, I came to the fourth drawer, and found 
 more relics of past pecuniary transactions in the shape of 
 receipted bills, neatly tied together, and each inscribed at 
 the back. Among the bills I found nearly a dozen loose pa- 
 pers, all equally unimportant. The fifth drawer was in sad 
 confusion. I took out first a loose bundle of ornamental 
 cards, each containing the list of dishes at past banquets 
 given or attended by the Major in London or Paris; next, 
 a box full of delicately tinted quill pens (evidently a lady's 
 gift); next, a quantity of old invitation cards; next, some 
 dog's-eared French plays and books of the opera; next, 
 a pocket-corkscrew, a bundle of cigarettes, and a bunch of 
 rusty keys ; lastly, a passport, a set of luggage labels, a bro- 
 ken silver snuff-box, two cigar-cases, and a torn map of Rome. 
 "Nothing any where to interest me" I thought, as I closed 
 the fifth, and opened the sixth and last drawer. 
 
 The sixth drawer was at once a surprise and a disappoint- 
 ment. It literally contained nothing but the fragments of a 
 broken vase. 
 
 I was sitting, at the time, opposite to the cabinet, in a low 
 chair. In the momentary irritation caused by my discovery 
 of the emptiness 01 the last drawer, I had just lifted my foot 
 to push it back into its place, when the door communicating 
 with the hall opened, and Major Fitz-David stood before me. 
 
 His eyes, after first meeting mine, traveled downward to my 
 foot. The instant he noticed the open drawer I saw a change 
 in his face. It was only for a moment ; but in that moment 
 he looked at me with a sudden suspicion and surprise looked 
 as if he had caught me with my hand on the clew. 
 
 "Pray don't let me disturb you," said Major Fitz-David. 
 " I have only come here to ask you a question." 
 
 "What is* it, Major?"
 
 72 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 "Have you met with any letters of mine in the course of 
 your investigations?" 
 
 " I have found none yet," I answered. " If I do discover 
 any letters, I shall, of course, not take the liberty of examin- 
 ing them." 
 
 "I wanted to speak to you about that," he rejoined. "It 
 only struck me a moment since, up -stairs, that my letters 
 might embarrass you. In your place I should feel some dis- 
 trust of any thing which I was not at liberty to examine. 
 I think I can set this matter right, however, with very little 
 trouble to either of us. It is no violation of any promises 
 or pledges on my part if I simply tell you that my letters 
 will not assist the discovery which you are trying to make. 
 You can safely pass them over as objects that are not worth 
 examining from your point of view. You understand me, I 
 am sure ?" 
 
 " I am much obliged to you, Major I quite understand." 
 
 " Are you feeling any fatigue ?" 
 
 " None whatever, thank you." 
 
 "And you still hope to succeed? You are not beginning 
 to be discouraged already ?" 
 
 " I am not in the least discouraged. "With your kind leave, 
 I mean to persevere for some time yet." 
 
 I had not closed the drawer of the cabinet while AVC were 
 talking, and I glanced carelessly, as I answered him, at the 
 fragments of the broken vase. By this time he had got his 
 feelings under perfect command. He, too, glanced at the 
 fragments of the vase with an appearance of perfect indif- 
 ference. I remembered the look of suspicion and surprise 
 that had escaped him on entering the room, and I thought 
 his indifference a little overacted. 
 
 "That doesn't look very encouraging," he said, with a 
 smile, pointing to the shattered pieces of china in the 
 drawer. 
 
 "Appearances are not always to be trusted," I replied. 
 " The wisest thing I can do in my present situation is to 
 suspect every thing, even down to a broken vase." 
 
 I looked hard at him as I spoke. He changed the subject. 
 
 "Does the music up-stairs annoy you?" he asked. 
 
 "Not in the least, Major." 
 
 " It will soon be over now. The singing-master is going, 
 and the Italian master has just arrived. I am sparing no
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. ^3 
 
 pains to make my young prima donna a most accomplished 
 person. In learning to sing she must also learn the language 
 which is especially the language of music. I shall perfect 
 her in the accent when I take her to Italy. It is the height 
 of my ambition to have her mistaken for an Italian when 
 she sings in public. Is there any thing I can do before I 
 leave you again ? May I send you some more Champagne ? 
 Please say yes !" 
 
 "A thousand thanks, Major. No more Champagne for 
 the present.'" 
 
 He turned at the door to kiss his hand to me at parting. 
 At the same moment I saw his eyes wander slyly toward the 
 book-case. It was only for an instant. I had barely de- 
 tected him before he was out of the room. 
 
 Left by myself again, I looked at the book-case looked at 
 it attentively for the first time. 
 
 It was a handsome piece of furniture in ancient carved 
 oak, and it stood against the Avail which ran parallel with 
 the hall of the house. Excepting the space occupied in the 
 upper corner of the room by the second door, which opened 
 into the hall, the book-case filled the whole length of the 
 wall down to the window. The top was ornamented by 
 vases, candelabra, and statuettes, in pairs, placed in a row. 
 Looking along the row, I noticed a vacant space on the top 
 of the book-case at the extremity of it which was nearest to 
 the window. The opposite extremity, nearest to the door, 
 was occupied by a handsome painted vase of a very peculiar 
 pattern. Where was the corresponding vase, which ought 
 to have been placed at the corresponding extremity of the 
 book-case? I returned to the open sixth drawer of the cab- 
 inet, and looked in again. There was no mistaking the pat- 
 tern on the fragments when I examined them now. The 
 vase which had been broken was the vase which had stood 
 in the place now vacant on the top of the book-case at the 
 end nearest to the window. 
 
 Making this discovery, I took out the fragments, down to 
 the smallest morsel of the shattered china, and examined 
 them carefully one after another. 
 
 I was too ignorant' of the subject to be able to estimate 
 the value of the v&te or the antiquity of the vase, or even to 
 know whether it were of British or of foreign manufacture. 
 The ground was of a delicate cream-color. The ornaments
 
 I 
 
 74 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 traced on this were wreaths of flowers and Cupids surround- 
 ing a medallion on either side of the vase. Upon the space 
 within one of the medallions was painted with exquisite del- 
 icacy a woman's head, representing a nymph or a goddess, 
 or perhaps a portrait of some celebrated person I was not 
 learned enough to say which. The other medallion inclosed 
 the head of a man, also treated in the classical style. Re- 
 clining shepherds and shepherdesses in Watteau costume, 
 with their dogs and their sheep, formed the adornments of 
 the pedestal. Such had the vase been in the days of its 
 prosperity, when it stood on the top of the book-case. By 
 what accident had it become broken ? And why had Major 
 Fitz-David's face changed when he found that I had discov- 
 ered the remains of his shattered work of art in the cabinet 
 drawer ? 
 
 The remains left those serious questions unanswered the 
 remains told me absolutely nothing. And yet, if my own 
 observation of the Major Avere to be trusted, the way to the 
 clew of which I was in search lay, directly or indirectly, 
 through the broken vase. 
 
 It was useless to pursue the question, knowing no more 
 than I knew now. I returned to the book-case. 
 
 Thus far I had assumed (without any sufficient reason) 
 that the clew of which I was in search must necessarily re- 
 veal itself through a written paper of some sort. It now 
 occurred to me after the movement which I had detected 
 on the part of the Major that the clew might quite as prob- 
 ably present itself in the form of a book. 
 
 I looked along the lower rows of shelves, standing just 
 near enough to them to read the titles on the backs of the 
 volumes. I saw Voltaire in red morocco, Shakespeare in blue, 
 Walter Scott in green, the History of England in brown, 
 the Annual Register in yellow calf. There I paused, wearied 
 and discouraged already by the long rows of volumes. How 
 (I thought to myself) am I to examine all these books ? And 
 what am I to look for, even if I do examine them all ? 
 
 Major Fitz-Dav id had spoken of a terrible misfortune which 
 had darkened my husband's past life. In what possible way 
 could any trace of that misfortune, or any suggestive hint 
 of something'resembling it, exist in the archives of the An- 
 nual Register or in the pages of Voltaire? The bare idea of 
 such a thing seemed absurd. The mere attempt to make a
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 75 
 
 serious examination in this direction was surely a wanton 
 waste of time. 
 
 And yet the Major had certainly stolen a look at the book- 
 case. And again, the broken vase had once stood on the 
 book-case. Did these circumstances justify me in connect- 
 ing the vase and the book-case as twin landmarks on the 
 way that led to discovery ? The question was not an easy 
 one to decide on the spur of the moment. 
 
 I looked up at the higher shelves. 
 
 Here the collection of books exhibited a greater variety. 
 The volumes were smaller, and were not so carefully arranged 
 as on the lower shelves. Some were bound in cloth, some 
 were only protected by paper covers; one or two had fallen, 
 and lay flat on the shelves. Here and there I saw empty 
 spaces from which books had been removed and not replaced.' 
 In short, there was no discouraging uniformity in these high- 
 er regions of the book-case. The untidy top shelves looked 
 suggestive of some lucky 'accident Avhich might unexpected- 
 ly lead the way to success. I decided, if I did examine the 
 book-case at all, to begin at the top. 
 
 Where was the library ladder ? 
 
 I had left it against the partition wall which divided the 
 back room from the room in front. Looking that way, I nec- 
 essarily looked also toward the door that ran in grooves 
 the imperfectly closed door through which I had heard Ma- 
 jor Fitz-David question his servant on the subject of my per- 
 sonal appearance when I first entered the house. No one 
 had moved this door during the time of my visit. Every 
 body entering or leaving the room had used the other door, 
 which led into the hall. 
 
 At the moment when I looked round something stirred in 
 the front room. The movement let the light in suddenly 
 through the small open space left by the partially closed door. 
 Had somebody been watching me through the chink? I 
 stepped softly to the door, and pushed it back until it was 
 wide open. There was the Major, discovered in the front 
 room ! I saw it in his face he had been watching me at the 
 book-case ! 
 
 His hat was in his hand. He was evidently going out; 
 and he dextrously took advantage of that circumstance to 
 give a plausible reason for being so near the door. 
 
 " I hope I didn't frighten you," he said.
 
 76 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 "You startled me a little, Major." 
 
 "I am so sorry, and so ashamed! I was just going to 
 opeu the door, and tell you that I am obliged to go out. I 
 have received a pressing message from a lady. A charm- 
 ing person I should so like you to know her. She is in sad 
 trouble, poor thing. Little bills, you know, and nasty trades- 
 people who want their money, and a husband oh, dear me, 
 a husband who is quite unworthy of her ! A most interest- 
 ing creature. You remind me of her a little ; you both have 
 the same carriage of the head. I shall not be more than half 
 an hour gone. Can I do any thing for you ? You are look- 
 ing fatigued. Pray let me send for some more Champagne. 
 No ? Promise to ring when you want it. That's right ! Ait 
 revoir, my charming friend au revoirf" 
 I pulled the door to again the moment his back was turned, 
 and sat down for a while to compose myself. 
 
 He had been watching me at the book-case ! The man 
 who was in my husband's confidence, the man who knew 
 where the clew was to be found, had been watching me at 
 the book-case ! There was no doubt of it now. Major Fitz- 
 David had shown me the hiding-place of the secret in spite 
 of himself! 
 
 I looked with indifference at the other pieces of furniture, 
 ranged against the fourth wall, which I had not examined 
 yet. I surveyed, without the slightest feeling of curiosity, 
 all the little elegant trifles scattered on the tables and on the 
 chimney-piece, each one of Avhich might have been an object 
 of suspicion to me under other circumstances. Even the wa- 
 ter-color di-awings failed to interest me in my present frame 
 of mind. I observed languidly that they were most of them 
 portraits of ladies fair idols, no doubt, of the Major's facile 
 -adoration and I cared to notice no more. My business in 
 that room (I was certain of it now !) began and ended with 
 the book-case. I left my seat to fetch the library ladder, 
 determining to begin the work of investigation on the top 
 shelves. 
 
 On my way to the ladder I passed one of the tables, and 
 saw the keys lying on it which Major Fitz-David had left at 
 my disposal. 
 
 The smaller of the two keys instantly reminded me of the 
 cupboards under the book-case. I had strangely overlooked 
 these. A vague distrust of the locked doors, a vague doubt
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 77 
 
 of what they might be hiding from me, stole into my mind. 
 I left the ladder in its place against the Avail, and set myself 
 to examine the contents of the cupboards first. 
 
 The cupboards were three in number. As I opened the 
 first of them the singing up-stairs ceased. For a moment 
 there was something almost oppressive in the sudden change 
 from noise to silence. I suppose my nerves must have 
 been overwrought. The next sound in the house nothing 
 more remarkable than the creaking of a man's boots descend- 
 ing the stairs made me shudder all over. The man was no 
 doubt the singing-master, going away after giving his lesson. 
 I heard the house door close on him, and started at the fa- 
 miliar sound as if it were something terrible which I had 
 never heard before. Then there was silence again. I roused 
 myself as well as I could, and began my examination of the 
 first cupboard. 
 
 It was divided into two compartments. 
 
 The top compartment contained nothing but boxes of ci- 
 gars, ranged in rows, one on another. The under compart- 
 ment was devoted to a collection of shells. They were all 
 huddled together anyhow, the Major evidently setting a far 
 higher value on his cigars than on his shells. I searched this 
 lower compartment carefully for any object interesting to mo 
 which might be hidden in it. Nothing was to be found in 
 any part of it besides the shells. 
 
 As I opened the second cupboard it struck me that the 
 light was beginning to fail. 
 
 I looked at the window : it was hardly evening yet. The 
 darkening of the light was produced by gathering clouds. 
 Rain-drops pattered against the glass; the autumn wind, 
 whistled mournfully in the corners of the court -yard. I 
 mended the fire before I renewed my search. My nerves 
 were in fault again, I suppose. I shivered when I went back 
 to the book-case. My hands trembled: I wondered what 
 was the matter with me. 
 
 The second cupboard revealed (in the upper division of it) 
 some really beautiful cameos not mounted, but laid on cot- 
 ton-wool in neat card-board trays. In one corner, half hid- 
 den under one of the trays, there peeped out the Avhite leaves 
 of a little manuscript. I pounced on it eagerly, only to meet 
 with a new disappointment: the manuscript proved to be a 
 descriptive catalogue of the cameos nothing more!
 
 78 THE LAW AXD THE LADY. 
 
 Turning to the lower division of the cupboard, I found 
 more costly curiosities in the shape of ivory carvings from 
 Japan and specimens of rare silk from China. I began to 
 feel weary of disinterring the Major's treasures. The longer 
 I searched, the farther I seemed to remove myself from the 
 one object that I had it at heart to attain. After closing the 
 door of the second cupboard, I almost doubted whether it 
 would be worth my while to proceed farther and open the 
 third and last door. 
 
 A little reflection convinced me that it would be as well, 
 now that I had begun my examination of the lower regions 
 of the book-case, to go on with it to the end. I opened the 
 last cupboard. 
 
 On the upper shelf there appeared, in solitary grandeur, 
 one object only a gorgeously bound book. 
 
 It was of a larger size than usual, judging of it by compar- 
 ison with the dimensions of modern volumes. The binding 
 was of blue velvet, with clasps of silver worked in beautiful 
 arabesque patterns, and with a lock of the same precious met- 
 al to project the book from prying eyes. When I took it 
 up, I found that the lock was not closed. 
 
 Had I any right to take advantage of this accident, and 
 open the book.? I have put the question since to some of 
 my friends of both sexes. The women all agree that I was 
 perfectly justified, considering the serious interests that I had 
 at stake, in taking any advantage of any book in the Major's 
 house. The men differ from this view, and declare that I 
 ought to have put back the volume in blue velvet unopened, 
 carefully guarding myself from any after-temptation to look 
 at it again by locking the cupboard door. I dare say the 
 men are right. 
 
 Being a woman, however, I opened the book without a 
 moment's hesitation. 
 
 The leaves were of the finest vellum, with tastefully de- 
 signed illuminations all round them. And what did these 
 highly ornamental pages contain ? To my unutterable amaze- 
 ment and disgust, they contained locks of hair, let neatly into 
 the centre of each page, with inscriptions beneath, which 
 proved them to be love-tokens from various ladies who had 
 touched the Major's susceptible heart at different periods of 
 his life. The inscriptions were written in other languages 
 besides English, but they appeared to be all equally devoted
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 79 
 
 to the same curious purpose, namely, to reminding the Major 
 of the dates at which his various attachments had come to 
 an untimely end. Thus the first page exhibited a lock of 
 the lightest flaxen hair, with these lines beneath : "My adored 
 Madeline. Eternal constancy. Alas, July 22, 1839 !" The 
 next page was adorned by a darker shade of hair, with a 
 French inscription under it : " Clemence. Idole de mon ame. 
 Toujours fidele. Helas, 2 me Avril, 1840." A lock of red hair 
 followed, with a lamentation in Latin under it, a note being 
 attached to the date of dissolution of partnership in this case, 
 stating that the lady was descended from the ancient Ro- 
 mans, and was therefore mourned appropriately in Latin by 
 her devoted Fitz-David. More shades of hair and more in- 
 scriptions followed, until I was weary of looking at them. I 
 put down the book, disgusted with the creatures who had 
 assisted in filling it, and then took it up again, by an after- 
 thought. Thus far I had thoroughly searched every thing 
 that had presented itself to my notice. Agreeable or not 
 agreeable, it was plainly of serious importance to my own 
 interests to go on as I had begun, and thoroughly to search 
 the book. 
 
 I turned over the pages until I came to the first blank leaf. 
 Seeing that they were all blank leaves from this place to the 
 end, I lifted the volume by the back, and, as a last measure 
 of precaution, shook it so as to dislodge any loose papers or 
 cards which might have escaped my notice between the 
 leaves. 
 
 This time my patience was rewarded by a discovery which 
 indescribably irritated and distressed me. 
 
 A small photograph, mounted on a card, fell out of the 
 book. A first glance showed me that it represented the 
 portraits of two persons. 
 
 One of the persons I recognized as my husband. 
 
 The other person was a woman. 
 
 Her face was entirely unknown to me. She was not young. 
 The picture represented her seated on a chair, with my hus- 
 band standing behind, and bending over her, holding one of 
 her hands in his. The woman's face was hard-featured and 
 ugly, with the marking lines of strong passions and resolute 
 st'lt'-will plainly written on it. Still, ugly as she was, I felt a 
 pang of jealousy as I noticed the familiarly affectionate ac- 
 tion by which the artist (with the permission of his sitters,
 
 80 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 of course) had connected the two figures in a group. Eus- 
 tace had briefly told me, in the days of our courtship, that he 
 had more than once fancied himself to be in love before he 
 met with me. Could this very unattractive woman have 
 been one of the early objects of his admiration? Had she 
 been near enough and dear enough to him to be photograph- 
 ed with her hand in his? I looked and looked at the por- 
 traits until I could endure them no longer. Women are 
 strange creatures mysteries even to themselves. I threw 
 the photograph from me into a corner of the cupboard. I 
 was savagely angry with my husband ; I hated yes, hated 
 with all my heart and soul! the woman who had got his 
 hand in hers the unknown woman with the self-willed, 
 hard-featured face. 
 
 All this time the lower shelf of the cupboard was still 
 waiting to be looked over. 
 
 I knelt down to examine it, eager to clear my mind, if I 
 could, of the degrading jealousy that had got possession of 
 me. 
 
 Unfortunately, the lower shelf contained nothing but relics 
 of the Major's military life, comprising his sword and pistols, 
 his epaulets, his sash, and other minor accoutrements. None 
 of these objects excited the slightest interest in me. My 
 eyes wandered back to the upper shelf; and, like the fool I 
 was (there is no milder word that can fitly describe me at 
 that moment), I took the photograph out again, and enraged 
 myself uselessly by another look at it. This time I observed, 
 what I had not -noticed before, that there were some lines of 
 writing (in a woman's hand) at the back of the portraits. 
 The lines ran thus : 
 
 " To Major Fitz-David, with two vases. From his friends, 
 S. and E. M." 
 
 Was one of those two vases the vase that had been broken ? 
 And was the change that I had noticed in Major Fitz-David's 
 face produced by some past association in connection with 
 it, which in some way affected me ? It might or might not 
 be so. I was little disposed to indulge in speculation on this 
 topic while the far more serious question of the initials con- 
 fronted me on the back of the photograph. 
 
 "S. and E. M?" Those last two letters might stand for 
 the initials of my husband's name his true name Eustace 
 Macallan. In this case the first letter (" S.") in all probabil-
 
 TUB LAW AND TI1E LADY. 81 
 
 ity indicated her name. What right had she to associate 
 herself with him in that manner? I considered a little 
 my memory exerted itself I suddenly called to mind that 
 Eustace had sisters. He had spoken of them more than 
 once in the time before our marriage. Had I been mad 
 enough to torture myself with jealousy of my husband's sis- 
 ter ? It might well be BO ; " S." might stand for his sister's 
 Christian name. I felt heartily ashamed of myself as this 
 new view of the matter dawned on me. What a wrong I 
 had done to them both in my thoughts ! I turned the pho- 
 tograph, sadly and penitently, to examine the portraits again 
 with a kinder and truer appreciation of them. 
 
 I naturally looked now for a family likeness between the 
 two faces. . There was no family likeness ; on the contrary, 
 they were as unlike each other in form v and expression as 
 faces could be. Was she his sister, after all? I looked at 
 her hands, as represented in the portrait. Her right hand 
 was clasped by Eustace ; her left hand lay on her lap. On 
 the third finger, distinctly visible, there was a wedding-ring. 
 Were any of my husband's sisters married ? I had myself 
 asked him the question when he mentioned them to me, and 
 I perfectly remembered that he had replied in the negative. 
 
 Was it possible that my first jealous instinct had led me 
 to the right conclusion after all ? If it had, what did the as- 
 sociation of the three initial letters mean ? What did the 
 wedding-ring mean ? Good Heavens ! was I looking at the 
 portrait of a rival in my husband's affections and was that 
 rival his Wife ? 
 
 I threw the photograph from me with a cry of horror. 
 For one terrible moment I felt as if my reason was giving 
 way. I don't know what would have happened, or what I 
 should have done next, if my love for Eustace had not taken 
 the uppermost place among the contending emotions that 
 tortured me. That faithful love steadied my brain. That 
 faithful love roused the reviving influences of my better and 
 nobler sense. Was the man whom I had enshrined in my 
 heart of hearts capable of such base wickedness as. the bare 
 idea of his marriage to another woman implied ? No ! Mine 
 was the baseness, mine the wickedness, in having even for a 
 moment thought it of him ! 
 
 I picked up the detestable photograph from the floor, and 
 put it back in the book. I hastily closed the cupboard door, 
 D 2
 
 82 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 fetched the library ladder, and set it against the book-case. 
 My one idea now was the idea of taking refuge in employ- 
 ment of any sort from my own thoughts. I felt the hate- 
 ful suspicion that had degraded me coming back again in 
 spite of my efforts to repel it. The books ! the books ! my 
 only hope was to absorb myself, body and soul, in the books. 
 
 I had one foot on the ladder, when I heard the door of the 
 room open the door which communicated with the hall. 
 
 I looked around, expecting to see the Major. I saw in- 
 stead the Major's future prima donna standing just inside 
 the door, with her round eyes steadily fixed on me. 
 
 " I can stand a good deal," the girl began, coolly, " but I 
 can't stand this any longer." 
 
 "What is it that you can't stand any longer?" I asked. 
 
 " If you have been here a minute, you have been here two 
 good hours," she went on. "All by yourself in the Major's 
 study. I am of a jealous disposition lam. And I want to 
 know what it means." She advanced a few steps nearer to 
 me, with a heightening color and a threatening look. " Is he 
 going to bring you out on the stage ?" she asked, sharply. 
 
 " Certainly not." 
 
 " He ain't in love with you, is he ?" 
 
 Under other circumstances I might have told her to leave 
 the room. In my position at that critical moment the mere 
 pi'esence of a human creature was a positive relief to me. 
 Even this girl, with her coarse questions and her uncultivat- 
 ed manners, was a welcome intruder on my solitude : she 
 offered me a refuge from myself. 
 
 " Your question is not very civilly put," I said. " Howev- 
 er, I excuse you. You are probably not aware that I am a 
 married woman." 
 
 " What has that got to do with it ?" she retorted. " Mar- 
 ried or single, it's all one to the Major. That brazen-faced 
 hussy who calls herself Lady Clarinda is married, and she 
 sends him nosegays three times a week ! Not that I care, 
 mind you, about the old fool. But I've lost my situation at 
 the railway, and I've got my own interests to look after, and 
 I don't know what may happen if I let other women come 
 between him and me. That's where the shoe pinches, don't 
 you see ? I'm not easy in my mind when I see him leaving 
 you mistress here to do just what you like. No offense ! I 
 speak out I do. I want to know what you are about all by
 
 THE LAW A2{D THE LADY. 83 
 
 yourself in this room? How did you pick up with the Ma- 
 jor ? I never heard him speak of you before to-day." 
 
 Under all the surface selfishness and coarseness of this 
 strange girl there was a certain frankness and freedom which 
 pleaded in her favor to my mind, at any rate. I answered 
 frankly and freely on my side. 
 
 "Major Fitz-David is an old friend of my husband's," I 
 said, " and he is kind to me for my husband's sake. He has 
 given me permission to look in this room " 
 
 I stopped, at a loss how to describe my employment in 
 terms which should tell her nothing, and which should at the 
 same time successfully set her distrust of me at rest. 
 
 " To look about in this room for what ?" she asked. Her 
 eye fell on the library ladder, beside which I was still stand- 
 ing. " For a book ?" she resumed. 
 
 " Yes," I said, taking the hint. " For a book." 
 
 "Haven't you found it yet ?" 
 
 " No." 
 
 She looked hard at me, undisguisedly considering with 
 herself whether I were or were not speaking the truth. 
 
 " You seem to be a good sort," she said, making up her 
 mind at last. "There's nothing stuck-up about you. I'll 
 help you if I can. I have rummaged among the books here 
 over and over again, and I know more about them than you 
 do. What book do you want ?" 
 
 As she put that awkward question she noticed for the first 
 time Lady Clarinda's nosegay lying on the side-table where 
 the Major had left it. Instantly forgetting me and my book, 
 this curious girl pounced like a fury on the flowers, and act- 
 ually trampled them under her feet ! 
 
 " There !" she cried. " If I had Lady Clarinda here I'd 
 serve her in the same way." 
 
 "What will the Major say?" I asked. 
 
 " What do I care ? Do you suppose I'm afraid of him f 
 Only last week I broke one of his fine gimcracks up there, 
 and all through Lady Clarinda and her flowers !" 
 
 She pointed to the top of the book-case to the empty 
 space on it close by the window. My heart gave a sudden 
 bound as my eyes took the direction indicated by her finger. 
 She had broken the vase ! Was the way to discovery about 
 to reveal itself to me through this girl? Not a word would 
 pass my lips ; I could only look at her.
 
 84 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 " Yes !" she said. " The thing stood there. He knows how 
 I hate her flowers, and he put her nosegay in the vase out 
 of my way. There was a woman's face painted on the china, 
 and he told me it was the living image of her face. It was 
 no more like her than I am. I was in such a rage that I up 
 with the book I was reading at the time and shied it at the 
 painted face. Over the vase went, bless your heart, crash to 
 the floor. Stop a bit ! I wonder whether thafs the book 
 you have been looking after? Are you like me? Do you 
 like reading Trials ?" 
 
 Trials? Had I heard her aright? Yes: she had said 
 Trials. 
 
 I answered by an affirmative motion of my head. I was 
 still speechless. The girl sauntered in her cool way to the 
 fire-place, and, taking up the tongs, returned with them to 
 the book-case. 
 
 " Here's where the book fell," she said " in the space be- 
 tween the book-case and the wall. I'll have it out in no 
 time." 
 
 I waited without moving a muscle, without uttering a 
 word. 
 
 She approached me with the tbngs in one hand and with a 
 plainly bound volume in the other. 
 
 " Is that the book ?" she said. " Open it, and see." 
 
 I took the book from her. 
 
 " It is tremendously interesting," she went on. " I've read it 
 twice over I have. Mind you, I believe he did it, after all." 
 
 Did it ? Did what ? What was she talking about ? I 
 tried to put the question to her. I struggled quite vainly 
 to say only these words : " What are you talking about ?" 
 
 She seemed to lose all patience with me. She snatched 
 the book out of my hand, and opened it before me on the 
 table by which we were standing side by side. 
 
 " I declare, you're as helpless as a baby !" she said, con- 
 temptuously. " There ! Is that the book ?" 
 
 I read the first lines on the title-page 
 
 A COMPLETE REPORT 
 
 OP 
 THE TRIAL 
 
 OP 
 
 EUSTACE MACALLAN.
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 85 
 
 I stopped and looked up at her. She started back from 
 me with a scream of terror. I looked down again at the 
 title-page, and read the next lines 
 
 FOR THE ALLEGED POISONING 
 
 HIS WIFE. 
 
 There, God's mercy remembered me. There, the black 
 blank of a swoon swallowed me up. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE RETTJBN TO LIFE. 
 
 Mr first remembrance when I began to recover my senses 
 was the remembrance of Pain agonizing pain, as if every 
 nerve in my body were being twisted and torn out of me. 
 My whole being writhed and quivered under the dumb and 
 dreadful protest of Nature against the effort to recall me to 
 life. I would have given worlds to be able to cry out to 
 entreat the unseen creatures about me to give me back to 
 death. How long that speechless agony held me I never 
 knew. In a longer or shorter time there stole over me slow- 
 ly a sleepy sense of relief. I heard my own labored breath- 
 ing. I felt my hands moving feebly and mechanically, like 
 the hands of a baby. I faintly opened my eyes and looked 
 round me as if I had passed through the ordeal of death, 
 and had awakened to new senses in a new world. 
 
 The first person I saw was a man a stranger. He moved 
 quietly out of my sight ; beckoning, as he disappeared, to 
 some other person in the room. 
 
 Slowly and unwillingly the other person advanced to the 
 sofa on which I lay. A faint cry of joy escaped me ; I tried 
 to hold out my feeble hands. The other person who was 
 approaching me was my husband ! 
 
 I looked at him eagerly. He never looked at me in re- 
 turn. With his eyes on the ground, with a strange appear- 
 ance of confusion and distress in his face, he too moved away 
 out of my sight. The unknown man Avhom I had first no- 
 ticed followed him out of the room. I called after him faint-
 
 86 - THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 ly, " Eustace !" He never answered ; he never returned. 
 With an effort I moved my head on the pillow, so as to 
 look round on the other side of the sofa. Another familiar 
 face appeared before me as if in a dream. My good old 
 Benjamin was sitting watching me, with the tears in his 
 eyes. 
 
 He rose and took my hand silently, in his simple, kindly 
 way. 
 
 "Where is Eustace?" I asked. "Why has he gone away 
 and left me ?" 
 
 I was still miserably weak. My eyes wandered mechanic- 
 ally round the room as I put the question. I saw Major Fitz- 
 David. I saw the table on which the singing girl had opened 
 the book to show it to me. I saw the girl herself, sitting 
 alone in a corner, with her handkerchief to her eyes as if she 
 were crying. In one mysterious moment my memory recov- 
 ered its powers. The recollection of that fatal title-page 
 came back to me ir all its horror. The one feeling that it 
 roused in me now- was a longing to see my husband to 
 throw myself into his arms, and tell him how firmly I be- 
 lieved in his innocence, how truly and dearly I loved him. I 
 seized on Benjamin with feeble, trembling hands. "Bring 
 him back to me !" I cried, wildly. " Where is he ? Help me 
 to get up !" 
 
 A strange voice answered, firmly and kindly : 
 
 " Compose yourself, madam. Mr. Woodville is waiting 
 until you have recovered, in a room close by." 
 
 I looked at him, and recognized the stranger who had fol- 
 lowed my husband out of the room. Why had he returned 
 alone ? Why was Eustace not with me, like the rest of 
 them? I tried to raise myself, and get on my feet. The 
 stranger gently pressed me back again on the pillow. I at- 
 tempted to resist him quite uselessly, of course. His firm 
 hand held me as gently as ever in my place. 
 
 "You must rest a little," he said. "You must take some 
 wine. If you exert yourself now you will faint again." 
 
 Old Benjamin stooped over me, and whispered a word of 
 explanation. 
 
 "It's the doctor, my dear. You must do as he tells 
 you." 
 
 The doctor ! They had called the doctor in to help them ! 
 I began dimly to understand that my fainting fit must have
 
 THE LAW AXD THE LADY. 87 
 
 presented symptoms far more serious than the fainting fits 
 of women in general. I appealed to the doctor, in a help- 
 less, querulous way, to account to me for my husband's ex- 
 traordinary absence. 
 
 "Why did you let him leave the room?" I asked. "If I 
 can't go to him, why don't you bring him here to me?" 
 
 The doctor appeared to be at a loss how to reply to me. 
 He looked at Benjamin, and said, " Will you speak to Mrs. 
 Woodville?" 
 
 Benjamin, in his turn, looked at Major Fitz-David, and 
 said, "Will you?' 1 '' The Major signed to them both to leave 
 us. They rose together, and went into the front room, pull- 
 ing the door to after them in its grooves. As they left us, 
 the girl who had so strangely revealed my husband's secret 
 to me rose in her corner and approached the sofa. 
 
 "I suppose I had better go too?" she said, addressing 
 Major Fitz-David. 
 
 " If you please," the Major answered. 
 
 He spoke (as I thought) rather coldly. She tossed her 
 head, and turned her back on him in high indignation. "I 
 must say 'a word for myself!" cried this strange creature, 
 with a hysterical outbreak of energy. "I must say a word, 
 or I shall burst !" 
 
 With that extraordinary preface, she suddenly turned my 
 way, and poured out a perfect torrent of words on me. 
 
 " You hear how the Major speaks to me ?" she began. "He 
 blames me poor Me for every thing that has happened. 
 I am as innocent as the new-born babe. I acted for the best. 
 I thought you wanted the book. I don't know now what 
 made you faint dead away when I opened it. And the Ma- 
 jor blames Me ! As if it was my fault ! I am not one of 
 the fainting sort myself; but I feel it, I can tell you. Yes ! 
 I feel it, though I don't faint about it. I come of respect- 
 able parents I do. My name is Iloighty Miss Hoighty. 
 I have my own self-respect; and it's wounded. I say my 
 self-respect is wounded, when I find myself blamed without 
 deserving it. You deserve it, if any body does. Didn't you 
 tell me you were looking for a book ? And didn't I present 
 it to you promiscuously, with the best intentions? I think 
 you might say so yourself, now the doctor has brought you 
 to again. I think you might speak up for a poor girl who is 
 worked to death with singing and languages and what not
 
 88 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 a poor girl who has nobody else to speak for her. I am as 
 respectable as you are, if you come to that. My name is 
 Hoighty. My parents ai'e in business," 1 and my mamma has 
 seen better days, and mixed in the best of company." 
 
 There Miss Hoighty lifted her handkerchief again to her 
 face, and burst modestly into tears behind it. 
 
 It was certainly hard to hold her responsible for what had 
 happened. I answered as kindly as I could, and I attempted 
 to speak to Major Fitz-David in her defense. He knew what 
 terrible anxieties were oppressing me at that moment; and, 
 considerately refusing to hear a word, he took the task of 
 consoling his young prima donna entirely on himself. What 
 he said to her I neither heard nor cared to hear: he spoke 
 in a whisper. It ended in his pacifying Miss Hoighty, by 
 kissing her hand, and leading her (as he might have led a 
 duchess) out of the room. 
 
 " I hope that foolish girl has not annoyed you at such a 
 time as this," he said, very earnestly, when he returned to 
 the sofa. "I can't tell you how grieved I am at what has 
 happened. I was careful to warn you, as you may remem- 
 ber. Still, if I could only have foreseen " 
 
 I let him proceed no farther. No human forethought 
 could have pi'ovided against what had happened. Besides, 
 dreadful as the discovery had been, I would rather 'have 
 made it, and suffered under it, as I was suffering now, than 
 have been kept in the dark. I told him this. And then I 
 turned to the one subject that was now of any interest to 
 me the subject of my unhappy husband. 
 
 " How did he come to this house ?" I asked. 
 
 "He came here with Mr. Benjamin shortly after I re- 
 turned," the Major replied. 
 
 " Long after I was taken ill ?" 
 
 "No. I had just sent for the doctor feeling seriously 
 alarmed about you." 
 
 " What brought him here ? Did he return to the hotel 
 and miss me ?" 
 
 " Yes. He returned earlier than he had anticipated, and. 
 he felt uneasy at not finding you at the hotel." 
 
 " Did he suspect me of being with you ? Did he come 
 here from the hotel ?" 
 
 " No. He appears to have gone first to Mr. Benjamin to 
 inquire about you. What he heard from your old friend I
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 89 
 
 can not say. I only know that Mr. Benjamin accompanied 
 him when he came here." 
 
 This brief explanation was quite enough for me I un- 
 derstood what had happened. Eustace would easily fright- 
 en simple old Benjamin about nry absence from the hotel; 
 and, once alarmed, Benjamin would be persuaded without 
 difficulty to repeat the few words which had passed between 
 us on the subject of Major Fitz-David. My husband's 
 presence in the Major's house was perfectly explained. But 
 his extraordinary conduct in leaving the room at the very 
 time when I was just recovering my senses still remained to 
 be accounted for. Major Fitz-David looked seriously em- 
 barrassed when I put the question to him. 
 
 "I hardly know how to explain it to you," he said. "Eus- 
 tace has surprised and disappointed me." 
 
 He spoke very gravely. His looks told me more than his 
 words : his looks alarmed me. 
 
 "Eustace has not quarreled with you ?" I said. 
 
 "Oh no!" 
 
 " He understands that ymi have not broken your promise 
 to him?" 
 
 " Certainly. My young vocalist (Miss Hoighty) told the 
 doctor exactly what had happened ; and the doctor in her 
 presence repeated the statement to your husband." 
 
 " Did the doctor see the Trial ?" 
 
 "Neither the doctor nor Mr. Benjamin has seen the 
 Trial. I have locked it up; and I have carefully kept the 
 terrible story of your connection with the prisoner a se- 
 cret from all of them. Mr. Benjamin evidently has his 
 suspicions. But the doctor has no idea, and Miss Hoigh- 
 ty has no idea, of the true cause of your fainting fit. 
 They both believe that you are subject to serious nervous 
 attacks, and that your husband's name is really Woodville. 
 All that the truest friend could do to spare Eustace I have 
 done. He persists, nevertheless, in blaming me for let- 
 ting you enter my house. And worse, far worse than this, 
 he persists in declaring that the event of to-day has fa- 
 tally estranged you from him. 'There is an end of our 
 married life,' he said to me, 'now she knows that I nm* 
 the man who was tried at Edinburgh for poisonii 
 wife !" 
 
 I rose from the sofa in horror.
 
 90 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 " Good God !" I cried, " does Eustace suppose that I doubt 
 his innocence ?" 
 
 " He denies that it is possible for you or for any body to 
 believe in his innocence," the Major replied. 
 
 "Help me to the door," I said. "Where is he? I must 
 and will see him !" 
 
 I dropped back exhausted on the sofa as I said the words. 
 Major Fitz-David poured out a glass of wine from the bottle 
 on the table, and insisted on my drinking it. 
 
 " You shall see him," said the Major. " I promise you that. 
 The doctor has forbidden him to leavelithe house until you 
 have seen him. Only wait a little ! My pjbo.r, dear lady, wait, 
 if it is- only for a few minutes, jintil youtaTe stronger." 
 
 I had no choice but to- jH^y^bim. t Oh, those miserable, 
 helpless niinutes on-the sofa! J^PPnot write of them with- 
 out shuddering at* the recollection even at this distance of 
 .time. 
 
 " Bring him here !" I said. " Pray, pray bring him here !" 
 
 " Who is to persuade him to come back ?" asked the Ma- 
 jor, sadly. " How can I, how can any body, prevail with a 
 man a madman I had almost said ! who could leave you 
 at the moment when you first opened your eyes on him ? I 
 saw Eustace alone in the next room while the doctor was in 
 attendance on you. I tried to shake his obstinate distrust 
 of your belief in his innocence and of my belief in his inno- 
 cence by every argument and every appeal that an old friend 
 could address to him. He had but one answer to give me. 
 Reason as I might, and plead as I might, he still persisted in 
 referring me to the Scotch Verdict." 
 
 " The Scotch Verdict ?" I repeated. " What is that ?" 
 
 The Major looked surprised at the question. 
 
 " Have you .really never heard of the Trial ?" he said. 
 " Never." 
 
 "I thought it strange," he went on, " when you told me 
 you had found out your husband's true name, that the dis- 
 covery appeared to have suggested no painful association to 
 your mind. It is not more than three years since all En- 
 gland was talking of your husband. One can hardly wonder 
 at his taking refuge, poor fellow, in an assumed name. Where 
 could you have been at the time ?" 
 
 " Did you say it was three years ago ?" I asked. 
 
 " Yes."
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 91 
 
 "I think I can explain my strange ignorance of what was 
 so well known to every one else. Three years since my fa- 
 ther was alive. I was living with him in a country-house in 
 Italy up in the mountains, near Siena. We never saw an 
 English newspaper or met with an English traveler for weeks 
 and weeks together. It is just possible that there might 
 have been some reference made to the Trial in my father's 
 letters from England. If there were, he never told me of it. 
 Or, if he did mention the case, I felt no interest in it, and for- 
 got it again directly. Tell me what has the Verdict to do 
 with my husband's horrible doubt of us? Eustace is a free 
 man. The Verdict was Not Guilty, of course ?" 
 
 Major Fitz-David shook his head sadly. 
 
 " Eustace was tried in Scotland," he said. " There is a 
 verdict allowed by the Scotch law, which (so far as I know) 
 is not permitted by the laws of any other civilized country 
 on the face of the earth. When the jury are in doubt wheth- 
 er to condemn or acquit the prisoner brought before them, 
 they are permitted, in Scotland, to express that doubt by a 
 form of compromise. If there is not evidence enough, on the 
 one hand, to justify them in finding a prisonerguilty, and not 
 evidence enough, on the other hand, to thoroughly convince 
 them that a prisoner is innocent, they extricate themselves 
 from the difficulty by finding a verdict of Not Proven." 
 
 " Was that the Verdict when Eustace was tried?" I asked. 
 
 "yes." 
 
 "The jury were not quite satisfied that my husband was 
 guilty? and not quite satisfied that my husband was inno- 
 cent? Is that what the Scotch Verdict means?" 
 
 "That is what the Scotch Verdict means. For three years 
 that doubt about him in the minds of the jury who tried him 
 has stood on public record." 
 
 Oh, my poor darling ! my innocent martyr ! I understood 
 it at last. The false name in which he had married me; the 
 terrible words he had spoken when he had warned me to re- 
 spect his secret; the still more terrible doubt that he felt of 
 me at that moment it was all intelligible to my sympathies, 
 it was all clear to my understanding, now. I got up again 
 from the sofa, strong in a daring resolution which the Scotch 
 Vc rdict had suddenly kindled in me a resolution at once 
 too sacred and too desperate to be confided, in the first ill- 
 stance, to any other than my husband's ear.
 
 92 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 " Take me to Eustace !" I cried. " I am strong enough to 
 bear any thing now." 
 
 After one searching look at me, the Major silently offered 
 me his arm, and led me out of the room. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE SCOTCH VERDICT. 
 
 WE walked to the far end of the hall. Major Fitz-David 
 opened the door of a long, narrow room built out at the back 
 of the house as a smoking-room, and extending along one 
 side of the court-yard as far as the stable wall. 
 
 My husband was alone in the room, seated at the farther 
 end of it, near the fire-place. He started to his feet and faced 
 me in silence as I entered. The Major softly closed the door 
 on us and retired. Eustace never stirred a step to meet me. 
 I ran to him, and threw my arms round his neck and kissed 
 him. The embrace was not returned ; the kiss was not re- 
 turned. He passively submitted nothing more, 
 
 "Eustace!" I said, "I never loved you more dearly than 
 I love you at this moment ! I never felt for you as I feel for 
 you now !" 
 
 He released himself deliberately from my arms. He signed 
 to me with the mechanical courtesy of a stranger to take a 
 chair. 
 
 "Thank you, Valeria," he answered, in cold, measured 
 tones. " You could say no less to me, after what has hap- 
 pened ; and you could say no more. Thank you." 
 
 "We were standing before the fire-place. He left me, and 
 walked away slowly with his head down, apparently intend- 
 ing to leave the room. 1 followed him I got before him 
 I placed myself between him and the door. 
 
 " Why do you leave me ?" I said. " Why do you speak to 
 me in this cruel way ? Are you angry, Eustace ? My dar- 
 ling, if you are angry, I ask you to forgive me."- 
 
 " It is I who ought to ask your pardon," he replied. " I beg 
 you to forgive me, Valeria, for having made you my wife." 
 
 He pronounced those words with a hopeless, heart-broken 
 humility dreadful to see. I laid my hand on his bosom. I 
 said, " Eustace, look at me."
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 93 
 
 He slowly lifted his eyes to my face eyes cold and clear 
 and tearless looking at me in steady resignation, in immov- 
 able despair. In the utter wretchedness of that moment, I 
 was like him ; I was as quiet and as cold as my husband. 
 He chilled, he froze me. 
 
 " Is it possible," I said, " that you doubt my belief in your 
 innocence ?" 
 
 He left the* question unanswered. He sighed bitterly to 
 himself. "Poor woman!" lie said, as a stranger might have 
 said, pitying me. " Poor woman !" 
 
 My heart swelled in me as if it would burst. I lifted my 
 hand from his bosom, and laid it on his shoulder to support 
 myself. 
 
 "I don't ask you to pity me, Eustace ; I ask you to do 
 me justice. You are not doing me justice. If you had trust- 
 ed me with the truth in the days when we first knew that 
 we loved each other if you had told me all, and more than 
 all that I know now as God is my witness, I would still 
 have married you ! N'oio do you doubt that I believe you 
 are an innocent man !" 
 
 " I don't doubt it," he said. " All your impulses are gen- 
 erous, Valeria. You are speaking generously and feeling 
 generously. Don't blame me, my poor child, if I look on far- 
 ther than you do : if I see what is to come too surely to 
 come in the cruel future." 
 
 " The cruel future !" I repeated. " What do you mean ?" 
 
 "You believe in my innocence, Valeria. The jury who 
 tried me doubted it and have left that doubt on record. 
 What reason have you for believing, in the face of the Ver- 
 dict, that I am an innocent man ?" 
 
 "I want no reason! I believe in spite of the jury in 
 spite of the Verdict." 
 
 " Will your friends agree with you ? When your uncle 
 and aunt know what has happened and sooner or later 
 they must know it what will they say? They will say, 
 'He began badly; he concealed from our niece that he had 
 been wedded to a first wife ; he married our niece under a 
 false name. He may say he is innocent ; but we have only 
 his word for it. When he was put on his Trial, the Verdict 
 was Not Proven. Not Proven won't do for us. If the jury 
 have done him an injustice if he is innocent let him prove 
 it.' That is what the world thinks and says of me. That is
 
 94 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 what your friends will think and say of me. The time is 
 coming, Valeria, when you even You will feel that your 
 friends have reason to appeal to on their side, and that you 
 have no reason on yours." 
 
 " That time will never come !" I answered, warmly. " You 
 wrong me, you insult me, in thinking it possible !" 
 
 He put down my hand from him, and drew back a step, 
 with a bitter smile. 
 
 "We have only been married a few days, Valeria. Your 
 love for me is new and young. Time, which wears away all 
 things, will wear away the first fervor of that love." 
 
 " Never ! never !" 
 
 He drew back from me a little farther still. 
 
 "Look at the world around you," he said. " The happiest 
 husbands and wives have their occasional misunderstandings 
 and disagreements; the brightest married life has its pass- 
 ing clouds. "When those days come for tis, the doubts and 
 fears that you don't feel now will find their way to you then. 
 When the clouds rise in our married life when 1 say my 
 first harsh word, when you make your first hasty reply 
 then, in the solitude of your own room, in the stillness of 
 the wakeful night, you will think of my first wife's miserable 
 death. You will remember that I was held responsible for 
 it, and that my innocence was never proved. You will say 
 to yourself, ' Did it begin, in her time, with a harsh word 
 from him and with a hasty reply from her? Will it one^ 
 day end with me as the jury half feared that it ended with 
 her?' Hideous questions for a wife to ask herself! You 
 will stifle them ; you will recoil from them, like a good wom- 
 an, with horror. But when we meet the next morning you 
 will be on your guard, and I shall see it, and knoAv in my 
 heart of hearts what it means. Imbittered by that knowl- 
 edge, my next harsh word may be harsher still. Your next 
 thoughts of me may remind you more vividly and more 
 boldly that your husband was once tried as a poisoner, and 
 that the question of his first wife's death was never properly 
 cleared up. Do you see what materials for a domestic hell 
 are mingling for us here ? Was it for nothing that I warned 
 you, solemnly warned you, to draw back, when I found you 
 bent on discovering the truth ? Can I ever be at your bed- 
 side now, when you are ill, and not remind you, in the most 
 innocent things I do, of what happened at that other bed-
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 95 
 
 side, in the time of that other woman whom I married first? 
 If I pour out your medicine, I commit a suspicious action 
 they say I poisoned her in her medicine. If I bring you a 
 cup of tea, I revive the remembrance of a horrid doubt they 
 said I put the arsenic in her cup of tea. If I kiss you when 
 I leave the room, I remind you that the prosecution accused 
 me of kissing her, to save appearances and produce an affect 
 on the nurse. Can we live together on such terms as these ? 
 No mortal creatures could support the misery of it. This 
 very day I said to you, * If you stir a step farther in this 
 matter, there is an end of your happiness for the rest of your 
 life.' You have taken that step and the end has come to 
 your happiness and to mine. The blight that cankers and 
 .kills is on you and on me for the rest of our lives !" 
 
 So far I had forced myself to listen to him. At those last 
 words the picture of the future that he was placing before 
 me became too hideous to be endured. I refused to hear 
 more. 
 
 "You are talking horribly," I said. "At your jige and at 
 mine, have we done with love and done with hope? It is 
 blasphemy to Love and Hope to say it !" 
 
 " Wait till you have read the Trial," he answered. " You 
 mean to read it, I suppose ?" 
 
 " Every word of it ! With a motive, Eustace, which you 
 have yet to know." 
 
 "No motive of yours, Valeria, no love and hope of yours, 
 can alter the inexorable facts. My first wife died poisoned ; 
 and the verdict of the jury has not absolutely acquitted me 
 of the guilt of causing her death. As long as you were ig- 
 norant of that, the possibilities of happiness were always 
 within our reach. Now you know it, I say again our mar- 
 ried life is at an end." 
 
 "No," I said. "Now I know it, our married life has be- 
 gun begun with a new object for your wife's devotion, with 
 a new reason for your wife's love 1" 
 
 " What do you mean ?" 
 
 I went near to him* again, and took his hand. 
 
 " What did you tell me the world has said of you ?'' I 
 asked. " What did you tell me my friends would say of you? 
 ' Not Proven won't do for us. If the jury have done him au 
 injustice if he is innocent let him prove it.' Those were 
 the words you put into the mouths of my friends. I adopt
 
 96 TUB LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 them for mine ! -Z"say Not Proven won't do for me. Prove 
 your right, Eustace, to^a verdict of Not Guilty. "Why have 
 you let three years pass without doing it ? Shall I guess 
 why ? You have waited for your wife to help you. Here 
 she is, my darling, ready to help you with all her heart and 
 soul. Here she is, with one object in life to show the world 
 and to show the Scotch Jury that her husband is an innocent 
 man !" 
 
 I had roused myself; my pulses were throbbing, my voice 
 rang through the room. Had I roused him? What was 
 his answer? 
 
 " Read the Trial." That was his answer. 
 
 I seized him by the arm. In my indignation and my de- 
 spair I shook him with all my strength. God forgive me, I 
 could almost have struck him for the tone in which he had 
 spoken and the look that he had cast on me ! 
 
 " I have told you that I mean to read the Trial," I said. 
 " I mean to read it, line by line, with you. Some inexcusable 
 mistake has been made. Evidence in your favor that might 
 have been found has not been found. Suspicious circumstances 
 have not been investigated. Crafty people have not been 
 watched. Eustace ! the conviction of some dreadful over- 
 sight, committed by you or by the persons who helped you, 
 is firmly settled in my mind. The resolution to set that vile 
 Verdict right was the first resolution that came to me when 
 I first heard of it in the next room. We will set it right ! 
 We must set it right for your sake, for my sake, for the 
 sake of our children if we are blessed with children. Oh, my 
 own love, don't look at me with those cold eyes ! Don't an- 
 swer me .in those hard tones ! Don't treat me as if I were 
 talking ignorantly and madly of something that can never be !" 
 
 Still I never roused him. His next words were spoken 
 compassionately rather than coldly that was all. 
 
 "My defense was undertaken by the greatest lawyers in 
 the land," he said. " After such men have done their utmost, 
 and have failed my poor Valeria, what can you, what can I, 
 do? We can only submit." 
 
 " Never !" I cried. " The greatest lawyers are mortal men ; 
 the greatest lawyers have made mistakes before now. You 
 can't deny that." 
 
 ."Read the Trial." For the third time" he said those cruel 
 words, and said no more.
 
 THE LAW AXD THE LADY. 97 
 
 In utter despair of moving him feeling keenly, bitterly 
 (if I must own it), his merciless superiority to all that I had 
 said to him in the honest fervor of my devotion and my love 
 I thought of Major Fitz-David as a last resort. In the 
 disordered state of my mind at that moment, it made no dif- 
 ference to me that the Major had already tried to reason 
 with him, and had failed. In the face of the facts I had a 
 blind belief in the influence of his old friend, if his old friend 
 could only be prevailed upon to support my view. 
 
 " Wait for me one moment," I said. "I want you to hear 
 another opinion besides mine." 
 
 I left him, and returned to the study. Major Fitz-David 
 was not there. I knocked at the door of communication with 
 the front room. It was opened instantly by the Major him- 
 self. The doctor had gone away. Benjamin still remained 
 in the room. 
 
 " Will you come and speak to Eustace ?" I began. " If 
 you will only say what I^want you to say " 
 
 Before I could add a word more I heard the house door 
 opened and closed. Major Fitz-David and Benjamin heard 
 it too. They looked at each other in silence. 
 
 I ran back, before the Major could stop me, to the room in 
 which I had seen Eustace. It was empty. My husband had 
 left the house. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE MAX'S DECISION". 
 
 MY first impulse was the reckless impulse to follow Eustace 
 openly through the streets. 
 
 The Major and Benjamin both opr^psed this hasty resolu- 
 tion on my part. They appealed to my own sense of self-re- 
 spect, without (so far as I remember it) producing the slightest 
 effect on my mind. They were more successful when they 
 entreated me next to be patient for my husband's sake. In 
 mow to Eustace, they begged me to wait halt' an hour. If 
 he failed to return in that time, they pledged themselves to 
 accompany me in search of him to the hotel. 
 
 In mercy to Eustace I consented to wait. What I suf- 
 fered under the forced necessity for remaining passive at that 
 E
 
 98 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 crisis in my life no words of mine can tell. It will be better 
 if I go on with my narrative. 
 
 Benjamin was the first to ask me what had passed between 
 my husband and myself. 
 
 " You may speak freely, my dear," he said. " I know what 
 has happened since you have been in Major Fitz-David's 
 house. No one has told me about it ; I found it out for my- 
 self. If you remember, I was struck by the name of 'Macal- 
 lan,' when you first mentioned it to me at my cottage. I 
 couldn't guess why at the time. I know why now." 
 
 Hearing this, I told them both unreservedly what I had 
 said to Eustace, and how he had received it. To my un- 
 speakable disappointment, they both sided Avith my husband, 
 treating my view of his position as a mere dream. They 
 said it, as he had said it, "You have not read the Trial." 
 
 I was really enraged with them. "The facts are enough 
 for me," I said. "We know he is innocent. Why is his 
 innocence not proved ? It ought ^o be, it must be, it shall 
 be ! If the Trial tell me it can't be done, I refuse to believe 
 the Trial. Where is the book, Major ? Let me see for my- 
 self if his lawyers have left nothing for his wife to do. Did 
 they love him as I love him ? Give me the book !" 
 
 Major Fitz-David looked at Benjamin. 
 
 " It will only additionally shock and distress her if I give 
 her the book," he said. " Don't you agree with me ?" 
 
 I interposed before Benjamin could answer. 
 
 " If you refuse my request," I said, " you will oblige me, 
 Major, to go to the nearest bookseller and tell him to buy the 
 Trial for me. I am determined to read it." 
 
 This time Benjamin sided with me. 
 
 "Nothing can make matters worse than they are, sir," he 
 said. " If I may be permitted to advise, let her have her 
 own way." 
 
 The Major rose and took the book out of the Italian cabi- 
 net, to which he had consigned it for safe-keeping. 
 
 " My young friend tells me that she informed you of her 
 regretable outbreak of temper a few days since," he said as 
 he handed me the volume. " I was not aware at the time 
 what book she had in her hand when she so far forgot her- 
 self as to destroy the vase. When I left you in the study, 
 I supposed the Report of the Trial to be in its customary 
 place on the top shelf of the book-case, and I own I felt some
 
 THE LAW AXD THE LADY. 99 
 
 curiosity to know whether you would think of examining 
 that shelf. The broken vase it is needless to conceal it 
 from you now was one of a pair presented to me by your 
 husband and his first wife only a week before the poor wom- 
 an's terrible death. I felt my first presentiment that you 
 were on the brink of discovery when I found you looking at 
 the fragments, and I fancy I betrayed to you that something 
 of the sort was disturbing me. You looked as if you noticed 
 it." 
 
 " I did notice it, Major. And I too had a vague idea that 
 I was on the way to discovery. Will you look at your 
 watch? Have we waited half an hour yet?" 
 
 My impatience had misled me. The ordeal of the half-hour 
 was not yet at an end. 
 
 Slowly and more slowly the heavy minutes followed each 
 other, and still there were no signs of my husband's return. 
 We tried to continue our conversation, and failed. Nothing 
 was audible ; no sounds but the ordinary sounds of the street 
 disturbed the dreadful silence. Try as I might to repel it, 
 there was one foreboding thought that pressed closer and 
 closer on my mind as the interval of waiting wore its weary 
 way on. I shuddered as I asked myself if our married life 
 had come to an end if Eustace had really left me. 
 
 The Major saw what Benjamin's slower perception had not 
 yet discovered that my fortitude was beginning to sink un- 
 der the unrelieved oppression of suspense, 
 
 "Come !" he said. "Let us go to the hotel." 
 
 It then wanted nearly five minutes to the half- hour. I 
 looked my gratitude to Major Fitz-David for sparing me 
 those last minutes : I could not speak to him or to Benjamin. 
 In silence we three got into a cab and drove to the hotel. 
 
 The landlady met us in the hall. Nothing had been seen 
 or heard of Eustace. There was a letter waiting for me up- 
 stairs on the table in our sitting-room. It had been left at 
 the hotel by a messenger only a few minutes since. 
 
 Trembling and breathless, I ran up the stairs, the two gen- 
 tlemen following me. The address of the letter was in my 
 husband's handwriting. My heart sank in' me as I looked 
 at the lines; there could be but one reason for his writing to 
 me. That closed envelope held his farewell words. I sot 
 with the letter on my lap, stupefied, incapable of opening it. 
 
 Kind-hearted Benjamin attempted to comfort and cncour-
 
 100 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 age me. The Major, with his larger experience of women, 
 warned the old man to be silent. 
 
 " Wait !" I heard him whisper. "Speaking to her will do 
 no good now. Give her time." 
 
 Acting on a sudden impulse, I held out the letter to him 
 as he spoke. Even moments might be of importance, if Eus- 
 tace had indeed left me. To give me time might be to lose 
 the opportunity of recalling him. 
 
 " You are his old friend," I said. " Open his letter, Major, 
 and read it for me." 
 
 Major Fitz-Dav id opened the letter and read it through to 
 himself. When he had done he threw it on the table with a 
 gesture which was almost a gesture of contempt. 
 
 " There is but one excuse for him," he said. " The man is 
 mad." 
 
 Those words told me all. I knew the worst ; and, know- 
 ing it, I could read the letter. It ran thus: 
 
 " MY BELOVED VALERIA, When you read these lines you 
 read my farewell words. I return to my solitary unfriended 
 life my life before I knew you. 
 
 "My darling, you have been cruelly treated. You have 
 been entrapped into marrying a man who has been publicly 
 accused of poisoning his first wife and who has not been 
 honorably and completely acquitted of the charge. And you 
 know it ! 
 
 " Can you live on terms of mutual confidence and mutual 
 esteem with me when I have committed this fraud, and when 
 I stand toward yoiin this position ? It was possible for you 
 to live with me happily while you were in ignorance of the 
 truth. It is not possible, now you know all. 
 
 " No I the one atonement I can make is to leave yon. 
 Your one chance of future happiness is to be disassociated, 
 at once and forever, from my dishonored life. I love you, 
 Valeria truly, devotedly, passionately. But the spectre of 
 the poisoned woman rises between us. It makes no differ- 
 ence that I am innocent even of the thought of harming my 
 first wife. My innocence has not been proved. In this world 
 my innocence can never be proved. You are young and lov- 
 ing, and generous and hopeful. Bless others, Valeria, with 
 your rare attractions and your delightful gifts. They are of 
 no avail with me. The poisoned woman stands between us.
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 101 
 
 If you live with me no\v, you will see her as I see her. That 
 torture shall never be yours. I love you. I leave you. 
 
 "Do you think me hard and cruel? Wait a little, and 
 time will change that way of thinking. As the years go on 
 you will say to yourself, ' Basely as he deceived me, there 
 was some generosity in him. He was man enough to release 
 me of his own free will.' 
 
 " Yes, Valeria, I fully, freely release you. If it be possible 
 to annul our marriage, let it be done. Recover your liberty 
 by any means that you may be advised to employ ; and be 
 assured beforehand of my entire and implicit submission. 
 My lawyers have the necessary instructions on this subject. 
 Your uncle has only to communicate with them, and I think 
 he will be satisfied of my resolution to do you justice. The 
 one interest that I have now left in life is my interest in your 
 welfare and your happiness in the time to come. Your wel- 
 fare and your happiness are no longer to be found in your 
 union with Me. 
 
 " I can write no more. This letter will wait for you at the 
 hotel. It will be useless to attempt to trace me. I know my 
 own weakness. My heart is all yours : I might yield to you 
 if I let you see me again. 
 
 " Show these lines to your uncle, and to any friends whose 
 opinions you may value. I have only to sign my dishonored 
 name, and every one will understand and applaud my motive 
 for writing as I do. The name justifies amply justifies 
 the letter. Forgive and forget me. Farewell. 
 
 "EUSTACE MACALLAN." 
 
 In those words he took his leave of me. \Ve had then 
 been married six days. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE WOMAN'S ANSWER. 
 
 THUS far I have written of myself with perfect frankness, 
 and, I think I may fairly add, with some courage as well. 
 My frankness fails me and my Courage fails me when I look 
 back to my husband's farewell letter, and try to recall the 
 storm of contending passions that it roused in my mind.
 
 102 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 No ! I can not tell the truth about myself I dare not tell 
 the truth about myself at that terrible time. Men ! con- 
 sult your observation of women, and imagine what I felt ; 
 women ! look 'into your own hearts, and see what I felt, for 
 yourselves. 
 
 What I did, when my mind was quiet again, is an easier 
 matter to deal with. I answered my husband's letter. My 
 reply to him shall appear in these pages. It will show, in 
 some degree, what effect (of the lasting sort) his desertion 
 of me produced on my mind. It will also reveal the motives 
 that sustained me, the hopes that animated me, in the new 
 and strange life which my next chapters must describe. 
 
 I was removed from the hotel in the care of my fatherly 
 old friend, Benjamin. A bedroom was prepared for me in 
 his little villa. There I passed the first night of my separa- 
 tion from my husband. Toward the morning my weary brain 
 got some rest I slept. 
 
 At breakfast-time Major Fitz-David called to inquire about 
 me. He had kindly volunteered to go and speak for me to 
 my husband's lawyers on the preceding day. They had ad- 
 mitted that they knew where Eustace had gone, but they 
 declared at the same time that they were positively forbid- 
 den to communicate his address to any one. In other re- 
 spects their " instructions " in relation to the wife of their 
 client were (as they were pleased to express it) " generous 
 to a fault." I had only to write to them, and they would 
 furnish me with a copy by return of post. 
 
 This was the Major's news. He refrained, with the tact 
 that distinguished him, from putting any questions to me 
 beyond questions relating to the state of my health. These 
 answered, he took his leave of me for that day. He and 
 Benjamin had a long talk together afterward in the garden 
 of the villa. 
 
 I retired to my room and wrote to my uncle Starkweather, 
 telling him exactly what had happened, and inclosing him a 
 copy of my husband's letter. This done, I went out for a 
 little while to breathe the fresh air and to think. I was soon 
 weary, and went back again to my room to rest. My kind 
 old Benjamin left me at perfect liberty to be alone as long 
 as I pleased. Toward the afternoon I began to feel a little 
 more like my old self again. I mean by this that I could
 
 THE LAW AXD THE LADY. 103 
 
 think of Eustace without bursting out crying, and could 
 speak to Benjamin without distressing and frightening the 
 dear old man. 
 
 That night I had a little more sleep. The next morning I 
 was strong enough to confront the first and foremost duty 
 that I now owed to myself the duty of answering my hus- 
 band's letter. 
 
 I wrote to him in these words : 
 
 " I am still too weak and weary, Eustace, to write to you 
 at any length. But my mind is clear. I have formed my 
 own opinion of you and your letter ; and I know what I* 
 mean to do now you have left me. Some women, in my 
 situation, might think that you had forfeited all right to their 
 confidence. I don't think that. So I write and tell you 
 what is in my mind in the plainest and fewest words that I 
 can use. 
 
 "You say you love me and you leave me. I don't un- 
 derstand loving a woman and leaving her. For my part, in 
 spite of the hard things you have said and written to me, 
 and in spite of the cruel manner in which you have left me, 
 I love you and I won't give you up. No ! As long as I 
 live I mean to live your wife. 
 
 " Does this surprise you ? It surprises me. If ano^ier 
 woman wrote in this manner to a man who had behavexl to 
 her as you have behaved, I should be quite at a loss to ac- 
 count for her conduct. I am quite at a loss to account for 
 my own conduct. I ought to hate you, and yet I can't help 
 loving you. I am ashamed of myself; but so it is. 
 
 " You need feel no fear of my attempting to find out where 
 you are, and of my trying to persuade you to return to me. 
 I am not quite foolish enough to do that. You are not in a 
 fit state of mind to return to me. You are all wrong, all 
 over, from head to foot. When you get right again, I am 
 vain enough to think that you will return to me of your own 
 accord. And shall I be weak enough to forgive you ? Yes ! 
 I shall certainly be weak enough to forgive you. 
 
 "lint how are you to get right again? 
 
 " I have puzzled my brains over this question by night and 
 by day, and my opinion is that you will never get right again 
 unless I help you; 
 
 "How am I to help you?
 
 104 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 "That question is easily answered. What the Law has 
 failed to do for you, your Wife must do for you. Do you 
 remember what I said when we were together in the back 
 room at Major Fitz-David's house ? I told you that the first 
 thought that came to me, when I heard what the Scotch jury 
 had done, was the thought of setting their vile Verdict right. 
 Well! Your letter has fixed this idea more firmly in my 
 mind than ever. The only chance that I can see of winning 
 you back to me, in the character of a penitent and loving 
 husband, is to change that underhand Scotch Verdict of Not 
 Proven into an honest English Verdict of Not Guilty. 
 
 "Are you surprised at the knowledge of the law which 
 this way of writing betrays in an ignorant woman? I have 
 been learning, my dear: the Law and the Lady have begun 
 by understanding one another. In plain English, I have 
 looked into Ogilvie's Imperial Dictionary, and Ogilvie tells 
 me, * A verdict of Not Proven only indicates that, in the 
 opinion of the jury, there is a deficiency in the evidence to 
 convict the prisoner. A verdict of Not Guilty imports the 
 jury's opinion that the prisoner is innocent.' Eustace, that 
 shall be the opinion of the world in general, and of the Scotch 
 jury in particular, in your case. To that one object I dedi- 
 cate my life to come, if God spare me ! 
 
 "^Who will help me, when I need help, is more than I yet 
 know. There was a time when I had hoped that we should 
 go hand in hand together in doing this good work. That 
 hope is at an end. I no longer expect you, or ask you, to 
 help me. A man who thinks as you think can give no' help 
 to any body it is his miserable condition to have no hope. 
 So be it ! I will hope for two, and will work for two ; and I 
 shall find some one to help me never fear if I deserve it. 
 
 " I will say nothing about my plans I have not read the 
 Trial yet. It is quite enough for me that I know you are 
 innocent. When a man is innocent, there must be a way of 
 proving it : the one thing needful is to find the way. Sooner 
 or later, with or without assistance, I shall find it. Yes ! be- 
 fore I know any single particular of the Case, I tell you pos- 
 itively I shall find it ! 
 
 "You may laugh over this blind confidence on my part, or 
 you may cry over it. I don't pretend to know whether I am 
 an object for ridicule or an object for pity. Of one thing 
 only I am certain : I mean to win you back, a man vindicated
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 105 
 
 before the world, without a stain on his character or his name 
 thanks to his wife. 
 
 " Write to me sometimes, Eustace ; and believe me, through 
 all the bitterness of this bitter business, your faithful and 
 loving VALERIA." 
 
 There was my reply ! Poor enough as a composition (I 
 could write a much better letter now), it had, if I may pre- 
 sume to say so, one merit. It was the honest expression of 
 what I really meant and felt. 
 
 I read it to Benjamin. He held up his hands with his cus- 
 tomary gesture when he was thoroughly bewildered and dis- 
 mayed. "It seems the rashest letter that ever was written," 
 said the dear old man. "I never heard, Valeria, of a woman 
 doing what you propose to do. Lord help us ! the new gen- 
 eration is beyond my fathoming. I wish your uncle Stark- 
 weather was here : I wonder what he would say ? Oh, dear 
 me, what a letter from a wife to a husband ! Do you really 
 mean to send it to him ?" 
 
 I added immeasurably to my old friend's surprise by not 
 even employing the post-office. I wished to see the " instruc- 
 tions" which my husband had left behind him. So I took 
 the letter to his lawyers myself. 
 
 The firm consisted of two partners. They both received 
 me together. One was a soft, lean man, with a sour smile. 
 The' other was a hard, fat man, with ill-tempered eyebrows. 
 I took a great dislike to both of them. On their side, they 
 appeared to feel a strong distrust of me. We began by dis- 
 agreeing. They showed me my husband's "instructions," 
 providing, among other things, for the payment of one clear 
 half of his income as long as he lived to his wife. I positive- 
 ly refused to touch a farthing of his money. 
 
 The lawyers were unaffectedly shocked and astonished 
 at this decision. Nothing of the sort had ever happened 
 before in the whole course of their experience. They argued 
 and remonstrated with me. The partner with the ill-tem- 
 pered eyebrows wanted to know what my reasons were. 
 The partner with the sour smile reminded his colleague 
 satirically that I was a lady, and had therefore no reasons to 
 give. I only answered, " Be so good as to forward my let- 
 ter, gentlemen," and left them. 
 
 I have no wish to claim any credit to myself in these pages 
 K _'
 
 106 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 which I do not honestly deserve. The truth is that my pride 
 forbade me to accept help from Eustace, now that he had 
 left me. My own little fortune (eight hundred a year) had 
 been settled on myself when I married. It had been more 
 than I wanted as a single woman, and I was resolved that it 
 should be enough for me now. Benjamin had insisted on 
 my considering his cottage as my home. Under these cir- 
 cumstances, the expenses in which my determination to clear 
 my husband's character might involve me were the only ex- 
 penses for which I had to provide. I could afford to be in- 
 dependent, and independent I resolved that I would be. 
 
 While I am occupied in confessing my weakness and my 
 errors, it is only right to add that, dearly as I still loved my 
 unhappy, misguided husband, there was one little fault of his 
 which I found it not easy to forgive. 
 
 Pardoning other things, I could not quite pardon his con- 
 cealing from me that he had been married to a first wife. 
 Why I should have felt this so bitterly as I did, at certain 
 times and seasons, I am not able to explain. Jealousy was 
 at the bottom of it, I suppose. And yet I was not conscious 
 of being jealous especially when I thought of the poor 
 creature's miserable death. Still, Eustace ought not to have 
 kept that secret from me, I used to think to myself, at odd 
 times when I was discouraged and out of temper. What 
 would he have said if I had been a widow, and had never 
 told him of it? 
 
 It was getting on toward evening when I returned to the 
 cottage. Benjamin appeared to have been on the lookout 
 for me. Before I could ring at the bell he opened the gar- 
 den gate. 
 
 " Prepare yourself for a surprise, my dear," he said. " Your 
 uncle, the Reverend Doctor Starkweather, has arrived from 
 the North, and is waiting to see you. He received your 
 letter this morning, and he took the first train to London as 
 soon as he had read it." 
 
 In another minute my uncle's strong arms were round me. 
 In my forlorn position, I felt the good vicar's kindness, in 
 traveling all the way to London to see me, very gratefully. 
 It brought the tears into my eyes tears, without bitterness, 
 that did*me good. 
 
 "I "have come, my dear child, to take you back to your 
 old home." he said. " No words can tell how fervently I
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 107 
 
 wish you had never left your aunt and me. Well ! well ! we 
 won't talk about it. The mischief is done, and the next thing 
 is to mend it as well as we can. If I could only get within 
 arm's-length of that husband of yours, Valeria There ! 
 there ! God forgive me, I am forgetting that I am a clergy- 
 man. What shall I forget next, I wonder? By-the-bye, 
 your aunt sends you her dearest love. She is more super- 
 stitious than ever. This miserable business doesn't surprise 
 her a bit. She says it all began with your making that mis- 
 take about your name in signing the church register. You 
 remember? Was there ever such stuff? Ah, she's a foolish 
 woman, that wife of mine ! But she means well a good 
 soul at bottom. She would have traveled all the way here 
 along with me if I would have let her. I said, ' No ; you 
 stop at home, and look after the house and the parish, and 
 I'll bring the child back.' You shall have your old bedroom, 
 Valeria, with the white curtains, you know, looped up with 
 blue ! We will return to the Vicarage (if you can get up in 
 time) by the nine-forty train to-morrow morning." 
 
 Return to the Vicarage ! How could I do that ? How 
 could I hope to gain what was now the one object of my ex- 
 istence if I buried myself in a remote north-country village? 
 It was simply impossible for me to accompany Doctor Stark- 
 weather on his return to his own house. 
 
 "I thank you, uncle, with all my heart," I said. "But I 
 am afraid I can't leave London for the present." 
 
 " You can't leave London for the present ?" he repeated. 
 " What does the girl mean, Mr. Benjamin ?" 
 
 Benjamin evaded a direct reply. 
 
 " She is kindly welcome here, Doctor Starkweather," he 
 said, " as long as she chooses to stay with me." 
 
 " That's no answer," retorted my uncle, in his rough-and- 
 ready way. He turned to me. " What is there to keep you 
 in London ?" he asked. " You used to hate London. I sup- 
 pose there is some reason ?" 
 
 It was only due to my good guardian and friend that I 
 should take him into my confidence sooner or later. ' There 
 was no help for it but to rouse my courage, and tell him 
 frankly what I had it in my mind to do. The vicar listened 
 in breathless dismay. He turned to Benjamin, with distress 
 as well as surprise in his face, when I had done. 
 
 " God help her !" cried the worthy man. " The poor thing's 
 troubles have turned her brain !"
 
 108 TUB LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 "I thought you would disapprove of it, sir," said Ben- 
 jamin, in his mild and moderate way. " I confess I disap- 
 prove of it myself." 
 
 " ' Disapprove of it ' isn't the word," retorted the vicar. 
 " Don't put it in that feeble way, if you please. An act of 
 madness that's what it is, if she really mean what she 
 says." He turned my way, and looked as he used to look 
 at the afternoon service when he was catechising an obsti- 
 nate child. "You don't mean it," he said, "do you?" 
 
 " I am sorry to forfeit your good opinion, uncle,' 1 1 replied. 
 "But I must own that I do certainly mean it." 
 
 "In plain English," retorted the vicar, " you are conceited 
 enough to think that you can succeed where the greatest 
 lawyers in Scotland have failed. They couldn't prove this 
 man's innocence, all working together. And you are going 
 to prove it single-handed ? Upon my word, you are a won- 
 derful woman," cried my uncle, suddenly descending from 
 indignation to irony. " May a plain country parson, who 
 isn't used to lawyers in petticoats, be permitted to ask how 
 you mean to do it ?" 
 
 " I mean to begin by reading the Trial, uncle." 
 
 "Nice reading for a young woman! You will be want- 
 ing a batch of nasty French novels next. Well, and when 
 you have read the Trial what then ? Have you thought 
 of that ?" 
 
 "Yes, uncle ; I have thought of that. I shall first try to 
 form some conclusion (after reading the Trial) as to the 
 guilty person who really committed the crime. Then I shall 
 make out a list of the witnesses who spoke in my husband's 
 defense. I shall go to those witnesses, and tell them who I 
 am and what I want. I shall ask all sorts of questions 
 which grave lawyers might think it beneath their dignity to 
 put. I shall be guided, in what I do next, by the answers 
 I receive. And I shall not be discouraged, no matter what 
 difficulties are thrown in my way. Those are my plans, 
 uncle, so far as I know them now." 
 
 The vicar and Benjamin looked at each other as if they 
 doubted the evidence of their own senses. The vicar spoke. 
 
 " Do you mean to tell me," he said, " that you are going 
 roaming about the country to throw yourself on the mercy 
 of strangers, and to risk whatever rough reception you may 
 get in the course of your travels? You \ A young woman !
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 109 
 
 Deserted by your husband ! With nobody to protect you ! 
 Mr. Benjamin, do you hear her? And can you believe your 
 ears ? I declare to Heaven /don't know whether I am awake 
 or dreaming. Look at her just look at her ! There she 
 sits as cool and easy as if she had said nothing at all ex- 
 traordinary, and was going to do nothing out of the common 
 way ! What am I to do with her? that's the serious ques- 
 tion what on earth am I to do with her?" 
 
 " Let me try my experiment, uncle, rash as it may look to 
 you," I said. " Nothing else will comfort and support me ; 
 and God knows I want comfort and support. Don't think 
 me obstinate. I am ready to admit that there arc serious 
 difficulties in my way." 
 
 The vicar resumed his ironical tone. 
 
 " Oh !" he said. " You admit that, do you ? Well, there 
 is something gained, at any rate." 
 
 " Many another woman before me," I went on, " has faced 
 serious difficulties, and has conquered them for the sake of 
 the mq,n she loved." 
 
 Doctor Starkweather rose slowly to his feet, with tlje air 
 of a person whose capacity of toleration had reached its last 
 limits. 
 
 "Am I to understand that you are still in love with Mr. 
 Eustace Macallan ?" he asked. 
 
 " Yes," I answered. 
 
 "The hero of the great Poison Trial?" pursued my uncle. 
 "The man who has deceived and deserted you? You love 
 him?" 
 
 " I love him more dearly than ever." 
 
 " Mr. Benjamin," said 'the vicar, " if she recover her senses 
 between this and nine o'clock to-morrow morning, send her 
 with her luggage to Loxley's Hotel, where" I am now staying. 
 Good-night, Valeria. I shall consult with your aunt as to 
 what is to be done next. I have no more to say." 
 
 "Give me a kiss, uncle, at parting." 
 
 " Oh yes, I'll give you a kiss. Any thing you like, Valeria. 
 I shall be sixty-five next birthday; and I thought I knew 
 something of women, at my time of life. It seems I know 
 nothing. Loxley's Hotel is the address, Mr. Benjamin. Good- 
 night." 
 
 Benjamin looked very grave when he returned to me after 
 accompanying Doctor Starkweather to the garden gate.
 
 110 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 " Pray be advised, my dear," he said. " I don't ask you 
 to consider my view of this matter as good for much. But 
 your uncle's opinion is surely worth considering?" 
 
 I did not reply. It was useless to say any more. I made 
 up my mind to be misunderstood and discouraged, and to 
 bear it. " Good-night, my dear old friend," was all I said 
 to Benjamin. Then I turned away I confess with the tears 
 in my eyes and took refuge in my bedroom. 
 
 The window-blind was up, and the autumn moonlight 
 shone brilliantly into the little room. 
 
 As I stood by the window, looking out, the memory came 
 to me of another moonlight night, when Eustace and I were 
 walking together in the Vicarage garden before our marriage. 
 It was the night of which I have written, many pages back, 
 when there were obstacles to our union, and when Eustace 
 had offered to release me from my engagement to him. I saw 
 the dear face again looking at me in the moonlight ; I heard 
 once more his words and mine. " Forgive me," he had said, 
 " for having loved you passionately, devotedly loved you. 
 Forgive me, and let me go." 
 
 And I had answered, " Oh, Eustace, I am only a woman 
 don't madden me ! I can't live without you. I must and 
 will be your wife !" And now, after marriage had united us, 
 we were parted ! Parte'd, still loving each other as passion- 
 ately as ever. And why ? Because he had been accused of 
 a crime that he had never committed, and because a Scotch 
 jury had failed to see that he was an innocent man. 
 
 I looked at the lovely moonlight, pursuing these remem- 
 brances and these thoughts. A new ardor burned in me. 
 " No !" I said to myself. " Neither relations nor friends 
 shall prevail on me to falter and fail in my husband's cause. 
 The assertion of his innocence is the work of my life; I will 
 begin it to-night." 
 
 I drew down the blind and lit the candles. In the quiet 
 night, alone and unaided, I took my first step on the toilsome 
 and terrible journey that lay before me. From the title-page 
 to the end, without stopping to rest and without missing a 
 word, I read the Trial of my husband for the murder of his 
 wife.
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. Ill 
 
 PARTIL 
 
 PARADISE REGAINED. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 THE STORY OF THE TRIAL. 
 
 THE PRELIMINARIES. 
 
 LET me confess another weakness, on my part, before I be- 
 gin the Story of the Trial. I caii not prevail upon myself 
 to copy, for the second time, the horrible title-page which 
 holds up to public ignominy my husband's name. I have 
 copied it once in my tenth chapter. Let once be enough. 
 
 Turning to the second page of the Trial, I found a Note, 
 assuring the reader of the absolute correctness of the Report 
 of the Proceedings. The compiler described himself as hav- 
 ing enjoyed certain special privileges. Thus, the presiding 
 Judge had himself revised his charge to the jury. And, 
 again, the chief lawyers for the prosecution and the defense, 
 following the Judge's example, had revised their speeches for 
 and against the prisoner. Lastly, particular care had been 
 taken to secure a literally correct report of the evidence given 
 by the various witnesses. It was some relief to me to discov- 
 er this Note, and to be satisfied at the outset that the Story 
 of the Trial was, in every particular, fully and truly given. 
 fThe next page interested me more nearly still. It enu- 
 merated the actors in the Judicial Drama the men who 
 held in their hands my husband's honor and my husband's 
 life. Here is the List : 
 
 THE LORD JUSTICE CLEKK,) 
 
 LOKD DRUMFEXXICK, > Judges on the Bench. 
 
 LORD NOBLEKIUK, ) 
 
 THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mintlaw). ) 
 
 DONALD DREW, Esquire (Advocate-Depute), } Coun8el for thc Crown ' 
 
 MR. JAMES ARLISS, W. S., Agent for the Crown. 
 
 Tin: DEAN OF FACULTY (Farmichael), > Counsel for thc Panel (other- 
 
 .AI.KX \NDER CROCKET, Esquire (Advocate), | wise the Prisoner). 
 
 Mu. TMOKXIKHAXK, VV. 8., ) 
 
 A e cnte for thc Pancl -
 
 112 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 } The Indictment against the prisoner then followed. I 
 snail not copy the uncouth language, full of needless repe- 
 titions (and, if I know any thing of the subject, not guiltless 
 of bad grammar as well), in which my innocent husband was 
 solemnly and falsely accused of poisoning his first wife. The 
 less there is of that false and hateful Indictment on this page, 
 the better and truer the page will look, to my eyes/" 1 
 
 To be brief, then, Eustace Macallan was " indicted"lind ac- 
 cused, at the instance of David Mintlaw, Esquire, Her Majes- 
 ty's Advocate, for Her Majesty's interest," of the Murder of 
 his Wife by poison, at his residence called Gleninch, in the 
 county of Mid-Lothian. The poison was alleged to have 
 been wickedly and feloniously given by the prisoner to his 
 wife Sara, on two occasions, in the form of arsenic, adminis- 
 tered in tea, medicine, " or other article or articles of food or 
 drink, to the prosecutor unknown." It was further declared 
 that the prisoner's wife had died of the poison thus adminis- 
 tered by her husband, on one or other, or both, of the stated 
 occasions ; and that she was thus murdered by her husband. 
 The next paragraph asserted that the said Eustace Macallan, 
 taken before John Daviot, Esquire, advocate, Sheriff -Substi- 
 tute of Mid-Lothian, did in his presence at Edinburgh (on 
 a given date, viz., the 29th of October), subscribe a Declara- 
 tion stating his innocence of the alleged crime : this Decla- 
 ration being reserved in the Indictment together with cer- 
 tain documents, papers, and articles, enumerated in an In- 
 ventory to be used in evidence against the prisoner. The 
 Indictment concluded by declaring that, in the event of the 
 offense charged against the prisoner being found proven by 
 the Verdict, he, the said Eustace Macallan, "ought to be pun- 
 ished with the pains of the law, to deter others from commit- 
 ting like crimes in all time coming." 
 
 So much for the Indictment ! I have done with it and I 
 am rejoiced to be done with it. 
 
 An Inventory of papers, documents, and articles followed 
 at great length on the next three pages. This, in its turn, was 
 succeeded by the list of the witnesses, and by the names of 
 the jurors (fifteen in number) balloted for to try the case. 
 And then, at last, the Report of the Trial began. It resolved 
 itself, to my mind, into three great Questions. As it ap- 
 peared to me at the time, so let me present it here.
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 113 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 FIRST QUESTION DID THE WOMAN DIE POISONED ? 
 
 THE proceedings began at ten o'clock. The prisoner was 
 placed at the Bar, before the High Court of Justiciary, at 
 Edinburgh. He bowed respectfully to the Bench, and plead- 
 ed Not Guilty, in a low voice. 
 
 It was observed by every one present that the prisoner's 
 face betraved traces of acute mental suffering. He was 
 deadly pale. His eyes never once wandered to the crowd 
 in the Court. When certain witnesses appeared against him, 
 lie looked at them with a momentary attention. At other 
 times he kept his eyes on the ground. When the evidence 
 touched on his wife's illness and death, he was deeply affect- 
 ed, and covered his face with his hands. It was a subject 
 of general remark and general surprise that the prisoner, in 
 this case (although a man), showed far less self-possession 
 than the last prisoner tried in that Court for murder a 
 woman, who had been convicted on overwhelming evidence. 
 There were persons present (a small minority only) who con- 
 sidered this want of composure on the part of the prisoner 
 to be a sign in his favor. Self-possession, in his dreadful po- 
 sition, signified, to their minds, the stark insensibility of a 
 heartless and shameless criminal, and afforded in itself a pre- 
 sumption, not of innocence, but of guilt. 
 
 The first witness called was John Daviot, Esquire, Sheriff- 
 Substitute of Mid-Lothian. He was examined by the Lord 
 Advocate (as counsel for the prosecution) ; and said : 
 
 "The prisoner was brought before me on the present charge. 
 He made and subscribed a Declaration on the 29th of Octo- 
 ber. It was freely and voluntarily made, the prisoner hav- 
 ing been first duly warned and admonished." 
 
 1 laving identified the Declaration, the Sheriff-Substitute 
 being cross-examined by the Dean of Faculty (as counsel 
 for the defense) continued his evidence in these words: 
 
 "The charge against the prisoner was Murder. This was 
 communicated to him before he made the Declaration. The 
 questions addressed to the prisoner were put partly by me,
 
 114 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 partly by another officer, the procurator-fiscal. The answers 
 were given distinctly, and, so far as I could judge, without 
 reserve. The statements put forward in the Declaration were 
 all made in answer to questions asked by the procurator-fis- 
 cal or by myself." 
 
 A clerk in the Sheriff-Clerk's office then officially produced 
 the Declaration, and corroborated the evidence of the wit- 
 ness who had preceded him. 
 
 The appearance of the next witness created a marked 
 sensation in the Court. This was no less a person than the 
 nurse who had attended Mrs. Macallan in her last illness 
 by name Christina Ormsay. 
 
 After the first formal answers, the nurse (examined by the 
 Lord Advocate) proceeded to say : 
 
 "I was first sent for to attend the deceased lady on the 
 7th of October. She was then suffering from a severe cold, 
 accompanied by a rheumatic affection of the left knee-joint. 
 Previous to this I understood that her health had been fair- 
 ly good. She was not a very difficult person to nurse when 
 you got used to her, and understood how to manage her. 
 The main difficulty was caused by her temper. She was not 
 a sullen person ; she was headstrong and violent easily ex- 
 cited to fly into a passion, and quite reckless in her fits of 
 anger as to what she said or did. At such times I really 
 hardly think she knew what she was about. My own idea is 
 that her temper was made still more irritable by unhappi- 
 ness in her married life. She was far from being a reserved 
 person. Indeed, she was disposed (as I thought) to be a lit- 
 tle too communicative about herself and her troubles with 
 persons like me who were beneath her in station. She did 
 not scruple, for instance, to tell me (when we had been long 
 enough together to get used to each other) that she was 
 very unhappy, and fretted a good deal. about her husband. 
 One night, when she was wakeful and restless, she said to 
 me" 
 
 The Dean of Faculty here interposed, speaking on the pris- 
 oner's behalf. He appealed to the Judges to say whether 
 such loqse and unreliable evidence as this was evidence which 
 could be received by the Court. 
 
 The Lord Advocate (speaking on behalf of the Crown) 
 claimed it as his right to produce the evidence. It was of 
 the utmost importance in this case to show (on the testi-
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 115 
 
 mony of an unprejudiced witness) on what terms the hus- 
 band and wife were living. The witness was a most respect- 
 able woman. She had won, and deserved, the confidence of 
 the unhappy lady whom she attended on her death-bed. 
 
 After briefly consulting together, the Judges unanimously 
 decided that the evidence could not be admitted. What the 
 witness had herself seen and observed of the relations be- 
 tween the husband and wife was the only evidence that they 
 could receive. 
 
 The Lord Advocate thereupon continued his examination 
 of the witness. Christina Ormsay resumed her evidence as 
 follows : 
 
 "My position as nurse led necessarily to my seeing more 
 of Mrs. Macallan than any other person in the house. I am 
 able to speak from experience of many things not known to 
 others who were only in her room at intervals. 
 
 " For instance, I had more than one opportunity of per- 
 sonally observing that Mr. and Mrs. Macallan did not live 
 together very happily. I can give you an example of this, 
 not drawn from what others told me, but from what I no- 
 ticed for myself. 
 
 f]" Toward the latter part of my attendance on Mrs. Mac- 
 allan, a young widow lady named Mrs. Beauly a cousin of 
 Mr. Macallan's came to stay at Gleninch. Mrs. Macallan 
 was jealous of this lady; and she showed it in my presence 
 only the day before her death, when Mr. Macallan came into 
 her room to inquire how she had passed the night. 'Oh,' 
 she said, ' never mind how /have slept ! What do you care 
 whether I sleep well or ill ? How has Mrs. Beauly passed 
 the night ? Is she more beautiful than ever this morning ? 
 Go back to her pray go back to her! Don't waste your 
 time with me !' Beginning in that manner, she worked her- 
 self into one of her furious rages. I was brushing her hair 
 at the time ; and feeling that my presence was an impropri- 
 ety under the circumstances, I attempted to leave the room. 
 She forbade me to go. Mr. Macallan felt, as I did, that my 
 duty was to withdraw, and he said so in plain words. Mrs. 
 Macallan insisted on my staying in language so insolent to 
 her husband that he said, ' If you can not control yourself, 
 either the nurse leaves the room or I do.' She refused to 
 yield even then. 'A good excuse,' she said, 'for getting 
 back to Mrs. Beauly. Go !' lie took her at her word, and
 
 116 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 walked out of the room. He had barely closed the door be- 
 fore she began reviling him to me in the most shocking man- 
 ner. She declared, among other things she said of him, that 
 the news of all others which he would be most glad to hear 
 would be the news of her death. I ventured, quite respect- 
 fully, on remonstrating with her. She took up the hair-brush 
 and threw it at me, and then and there dismissed me from 
 my attendance on her. I left her, and waited below until 
 her fit of passion had worn itself out. Then I returned to 
 my place at the bedside, and for a while things went on 
 again as usual. 
 
 "It may not be amiss to add a word which may help to 
 explain Mrs. Macallan's jealousy of her husband's cousin. 
 Mrs. Macallan was a very plain woman. She had a cast in 
 one of her eyes, and (if I may use the expression) one of the 
 most muddy, blotchy complexions it was ever my misfortune 
 to see in a person's face. Mrs. Beauly, on the other hand, 
 was a most attractive lady. Her eyes were universally ad- 
 mired, and she had a most beautifully clear and delicate 
 color. Poor Mrs. Macallan said of her, most untruly, that 
 she painted. 
 
 " No ; the defects in the complexion of the deceased lady 
 were not in any way attributable to her illness. I should 
 call them born and bred defects in herself. 
 
 "Her illness, if I am asked to describe it, I should say was 
 troublesome nothing more. Until the last day there were 
 no symptoms in the least degree serious about the malady 
 that had taken her. Her rheumatic knee was painful, of 
 course acutely painful, if you like when she' moved it ; and 
 the confinement to bed was irksome enough, no doubt. But 
 otherwise there was nothing in the lady's condition, before 
 the fatal attack came, to alarm her or any body about her. 
 She had her books and her writing materials on an invalid 
 table, which worked on a pivot, and could be arranged in 
 any position most agreeable to her. At times she read and 
 wrote a good deal. At other times she lay quiet, thinking 
 her own thoughts, or talking with me, and with one or two 
 lady friends in the neighborhood who came regularly to see 
 her. 
 
 " Her writing, so far as I knew, was almost entirely of the 
 poetical sort. She was a great hand at composing poetry. 
 On one occasion only she showed me some of her poems. I
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 117 
 
 am no judge of such things. Her poetry was of the dis- 
 mal kind, despairing about herself, and wondering why she 
 had ever been born, and nonsense like that. Her husband 
 came in more than once for some hard hits at his cruel heart 
 and his ignorance of his wife's merits. In short, she vented 
 her discontent with her pen as well as with her tongue. 
 There were times and pretty often too when an angel from 
 heaven would have failed to have satisfied Mrs. Macallan. 
 
 "Throughout the period of her illness the deceased lady 
 occupied the same room a large bedroom situated (like all 
 the best bedrooms) on the first floor of the house. 
 
 "Yes: the plan of the room now shown to me is quite ac- 
 curately taken, according to my remembrance of it. One 
 door led into the great passage, or corridor, on which all the 
 doors opened. A second door, at one side (marked B on the 
 plan), led to Mr. Macallan's sleeping-room. A third door, on 
 the opposite side (marked C on the plan), communicated with 
 a little study, or book-room, used, as I was told, by Mr. Mac- 
 allan's mother when she was staying at Gleninch,but seldom 
 or never entered by any one else. Mr. Macallan's mother 
 was not at Gleninch while I was there. The door between 
 the bedroom and this study was locked, and the key was 
 taken out. I don't know who had the key, or whether there 
 were more keys than one in existence. The door was never 
 opened to my knowledge. I only got into the study, to look 
 at it along with the housekeeper, by entering through a sec- 
 ond door that opened onto the corridor. 
 
 " I beg to say that I can speak from my own knowledge 
 positively about Mrs. Macallan's illness, and about the sud- 
 den change which ended in her death. By the doctor's ad- 
 vice I made notes at the time of dates and hours, and such 
 like. I looked at my notes before coming here. . ,it> 
 
 "From the 7th of October, when I was first called in to 
 nurse her, to the 20th of the same month, she slowly but 
 steadily improved in health. Her knee was still painful, no 
 doubt; but the inflammatory look of it was disappearing. 
 As to the other symptoms, except weakness from lying in 
 bed, and irritability of temper, there was really nothing the 
 matter with her. She slept badly, I ought perhaps to add. 
 But we remedied this by means of composing draughts pre- 
 scribed for that purpose by the doctor. 
 
 " On the morning of the 21st, at a few minutes past six, I
 
 118 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 got my first alarm that something was going wrong with 
 Mrs. Macallan. 
 
 " I was awoke at the time I have mentioned by the ring- 
 ing of the hand-bell which she kept on her bed-table. Let 
 me say for myself that I had only fallen asleep on the sofa in 
 the bedroom at past two in the morning from sheer fatigue. 
 Mrs. Macallan was then awake. She was in one of her bad 
 humors with me. I had tried to prevail on her to let me re- 
 move her dressing-case from her bed-table, after she had used 
 it in making her toilet for the night. It took up a great deal 
 of room ; and she could not possibly want it again before the 
 morning. But no ; she insisted on my letting it be. There 
 was a glass inside the case ; and, plain as she was, she never 
 wearied of looking at herself in that glass. I saw that she 
 was in a bad state of temper, so I gave her her way, and let 
 the dressing-case be. Finding that she was too sullen to 
 speak to me after that, and too obstinate to take her com- 
 posing draught from me when I offered it, I laid me down 
 on the sofa at her bed foot, and fell asleep, as I have said. 
 
 "The moment her bell rang I was up and at the bedside, 
 ready to make myself useful. 
 
 "I asked what was the matter with her. She complained 
 of faintness and depression, and said she felt sick. I inquired 
 if she had taken any thing in the way of physic or food while 
 I had been asleep. She answered that her husband had come 
 in about an hour since, and, finding her still sleepless, had 
 himself administered the composing draught. Mr. Macallan 
 (sleeping in the next room) joined us while she was speaking. 
 He too had been aroused by the bell. He heard what Mrs. 
 Macallan said to me about the composing draught, and made 
 no remark upon it. It seemed to me that he was alarmed 
 a* his wife's faintness. I suggested that she should take a 
 little wine, or brandy and water. She answered that she 
 could swallow nothing so strong as wine or brandy, having 
 a burning pain in her stomach already. I put my hand on 
 her stomach quite lightly. She screamed when I touched 
 her. 
 
 "This symptom alarmed us. We went to the village for 
 the medical man who had attended Mrs. Macallan during 
 her illness : one Mr. Gale. 
 
 "The doctor seemed no better able to account for the 
 change for the worse in his patient than we were. Hearing
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 119 
 
 her complain of thirst, he gave her some milk. Not long 
 after taking it she was sick. The sickness appeared to re- 
 lieve her. She soon grew drowsy and slumbered. Mr. Gale 
 left us, with strict injunctions to send for him instantly if she 
 was taken ill again. 
 
 " Nothing of the sort happened ; no change took place for 
 the next three hours or more. She roused up toward half- 
 past nine and inquired about her husband. I informed her 
 that he had returned to his own room, and asked if I should 
 send for him. She said 'No.' I asked next if she would like 
 any thing to eat or drink. She said 'No' again, in rather a 
 vacant, stupefied way, and then told me to go down-stairs 
 and get my breakfast. On my way down I met the house- 
 keeper. She invited me to breakfast with her in her room, 
 instead of in the servants' hall as usual. I remained with the 
 housekeeper but a short time certainly not more than half 
 an hour. 
 
 " Coming np-stairs again,! met the under-housemaid sweep- 
 ing on one of the landings. 
 
 "The girl informed me that Mrs. Macallan had taken a 
 cup of tea during my absence in the housekeeper's room. 
 Mr. Macallan's valet had ordered the tea for his mistress by 
 his master's directions. The under-housemaid made it, and 
 took it up-stairs herself to Mrs. Macallan's room. Her mas- 
 ter, she said, opened the door when she knocked, and took 
 the tea-cup from her with his own hand. He opened the 
 door widely enough for her to see into the bedroom, and to 
 notice that nobody was with Mrs. Macallan but himself. 
 
 "After a little talk with the under-housemaid, I returned 
 to the bedroom. No one was there. Mrs. Macallan was ly- 
 ing perfectly quiet, with her face turned away from me on 
 the pillow. Approaching the bedside, I kicked against some- 
 thing on the floor. It was a broken tea-cup. I said to Mrs. 
 Macallan, 'How comes the tea-cup to be broken, ma'am ?' 
 She answered, without turning toward me, in an odd, muffled 
 kind of voice, 'I dropped it.' 'Before you drank your tea, 
 ma'am ?' I asked. ' No,' she said ; ' in handing the cup back 
 to Mr. Macallan, after I had done.' I had put my question, 
 wishing to know, in case she had spilled the tea when she- 
 dropped the cup, whether it would be necessary to get her 
 any more. I am quite sure T re-member correctly my question 
 and her answer. I inquired next if she had been long alone.
 
 120 THE LAW AXD THE LADY. 
 
 She said, shortly, 'Yes ; I have been trying to sleep.' I said, 
 'Do you feel pretty comfortable?' She answered, 'Yes,' 
 again. All this time she still kept her face sulkily turned 
 from me toward the wall. Stooping over her to arrange the 
 bedclothes, I looked toward her table. The writing materi- 
 als which were always kept on it were disturbed, and there 
 was wet ink on one of the pens. I said, ' Surely you haven't 
 been writing, ma'am ?' ' Why not ?' she said ; ' I couldn't 
 sleep.' 'Another poem?' I asked. She laughed to herself 
 a bitter, short laugh. ' Yes,' she said, ' another poem.' 
 ' That's good,' I said ; ' it looks as if you were getting quite 
 like yourself again. We sha'n't want the doctor any more 
 to-day.' She made no answer to this, except an impatient 
 sign with her hand. I didn't understand the sign. Upon 
 that she spoke again, and crossly enough, too 'I want to 
 be alone ; leave me.' 
 
 " I had no choice but to do as I was told. To the best of 
 my observation, there was nothing the matter with her, and 
 nothing for the nurse to do. I put the bell-rope within reach 
 of her hand, and I Avent down-stairs again. 
 
 " Half an hour more, as well as I can guess it, passed. I 
 kept within hearing of the bell ; but it never rang. I was 
 not quite at my ease without exactly knowing why. That 
 odd, muffled voice in which she had spoken to me hung on my 
 mind, as it were. I was not quite satisfied about leaving her 
 alone for too long a time together and then, again, I was 
 unwilling to risk throwing her into one of her fits of passion 
 by going back before she rang for me. It ended in my vent- 
 uring into the room on the ground-floor called the Morning- 
 Room, to consult Mr. Macallan. He was usually to be found 
 there in the forenoon of the day. 
 
 " On this occasion, however, when I looked into the Morn- 
 ing-Room it was empty. 
 
 "At the same moment I heard the master's voice on the 
 terrace outside. I went out, and found him speaking to one 
 Mr. Dexter, an old friend of his, and (like Mrs. Beauly) a 
 guest staying in the house. Mr. Dexter was sitting at the 
 window of his room up-stairs (he was a cripple, and could 
 only move himself about in a chair on wheels), arid Mr. Mac- 
 allan was speaking to him from the terrace below. 
 
 " ' Dexter !' I heard Mr. Macallan say. ' Where is Mrs. 
 Beauly? Have you seen any thing of her?'
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 121 
 
 "Mr. Dexter answered, in his quick, off-hand way of speak- 
 ing, ' Not I. I know nothing about her.' 
 
 "Then I advanced, and, begging pardon for intruding, I 
 mentioned to Mr. Macallan the difficulty I was in about go- 
 ing back or not to his wile's room without waiting until she 
 rang for me. Before he could advise me in the matter, the 
 footman made his appearance and informed me that Mrs. 
 Macallan's bell was then ringing and ringing violently. 
 
 " It was then close on eleven o'clock. As fast as I could 
 mount the stairs I hastened back to the bedroom. 
 
 " Before I opened the door I heard Mrs. Macallan groan- 
 ing. She was in dreadful pain ; feeling a burning heat in 
 the stomach and in the throat, together with the same sick- 
 ness which had troubled her in the early morning. Though 
 no doctor, I could see in her face that this second attack was 
 of a far more serious nature than the first. After ringing 
 the beil for a messenger to send to Mr. Macallan, I ran to the 
 door to see if any of the servants happened to be within call. 
 
 "The only person I saw in the corridor was Mrs. Beauly. 
 She was on her way from her own room, she said, to inquire 
 after Mrs. Macallan's health. I said to her, 'Mrs. Macallan 
 is seriously ill again, ma'am. Would you please tell Mr. 
 Macallan, and send for the doctor ?' She ran down-stairs at 
 once to do as I told her. 
 
 " I had not been long back at the bedside when Mr. Mac- 
 allan and Mrs. Beauly both came in together. Mrs. Macal- 
 lan cast a strange look on them (a look I can not at all de- 
 scribe), and bade them leave her. Mrs. Beauly, looking very 
 much frightened, withdrew immediately. Mr. Macallan ad- 
 vanced a step or two nearer to the bed. His wife looked at 
 him again in the same strange way, and cried out half as 
 if she was threatening him, half as if she was entreating him 
 'Leave me with the nurse. Go!' He only waited to say. 
 to me in a whisper, ' The doctor is sent for,' and then he left 
 the room. 
 
 "Before Mr. Gale arrived Mrs. Macallan was violently sick. 
 
 What came from her was muddy and frothy, and faintly 
 
 streaked with blood. When Mr. Gale saw it he looked very 
 
 serious. I heard him say to himself, ' What does this mean V 
 
 He did his best to relieve Mrs. Macallan, but with no good 
 
 result that I could see. After a time she seemed to suffer 
 
 Then more sickness came on. Then there was another 
 
 F
 
 122 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 intermission. Whether she was suffering or not, I observed 
 that her hands and feet (whenever I touched them) remained 
 equally cold. Also, the doctor's report of her pulse was al- 
 ways the same ' very small and feeble.' I said to Mr. Gale, 
 ' What is to be done, sir ?' And Mr. Gale said to me, ' I 
 won't take the responsibility on myself any longer; I must 
 have a physician from Edinburgh.' 
 
 '' The fastest horse in the stables at Gleninch was put into 
 a dog-cart, and the coachman drove away full speed to Edin- 
 burgh to fetch the famous Doctor Jerome. 
 
 " While we were waiting for the physician, Mr. Macallan 
 came into his wife's room with Mr. Gale. Exhausted as she 
 was, she instantly lifted her hand and signed to him to leave 
 her. He tried by soothing words to persuade her to let him 
 stay. No ! She still insisted on sending him out of her 
 room. He seemed to feel it at such a time, and in the pres- 
 ence of the doctor. Before she was aware of him, he sud- 
 denly stepped up to the bedside and kissed her on the fore- 
 head. She shrank from him with a scream. Mr. Gale inter- 
 fered, and led him out of the room. 
 
 "In the afternoon Doctor Jerome arrived. 
 
 "The great physician came just in time to see her seized 
 with another attack of sickness. He watched her attentive- 
 ly, without speaking a word. In the interval when the sick- 
 ness stopped, he still studied her, as it were, in perfect silence. 
 I thought he would never have done examining her. When 
 he was at last satisfied, he told me to leave him alone with 
 Mr. Gale. ' We will ring,' he said, ' when we want you here 
 again.' 
 
 "It was a long time before they rang for me. The coach- 
 man was sent for before I was summoned back to the bed- 
 room. He was dispatched to Edinburgh for the second time, 
 with a written message from Dr. Jerome to his head servant, 
 saying that there was no chance of his returning to the city 
 and to his patients for some hours to come. Some of us 
 thought this looked badly for Mrs. Macallan. Others said 
 it might mean that the doctor had hopes of saving her, but 
 expected to be a long time in doing it. 
 
 "At last I was sent for. On my presenting myself in the 
 bedroom, Doctor Jerome went out to speak to Mr. Macallan, 
 leaving Mr. Gale along with me. From that time as long as 
 the poor lady lived I was never left alone with her. One of
 
 THE LAW AND THE I.ADV. 123 
 
 the two doctors was always in her room. Refreshments 
 were prepared for them ; but still they took it in turns to cat 
 their meal, one relieving the other at the bedside. If they 
 had administered remedies to their patient, I should not have 
 been surprised by this proceeding. But they were at the 
 end of their remedies ; their only business in the room seemed 
 to be to keep watch. I was puzzled to account for this. 
 Keeping watch was the nurse's business. I thought the con- 
 duct of the doctors very strange. 
 
 " By the time that the lamp was lit in the sick-room I 
 could see that the end was near. Excepting an occasional 
 feeling of cramp in her legs, she seemed to suffer less. But 
 her eyes looked sunk in her head ; her skin was cold and 
 clammy; her lips had turned to a bluish paleness. Nothing 
 roused her now excepting the last attempt made by her 
 husband to see her. He came in with Doctor Jerome, look- 
 ing like a man terror-struck. She was past speaking ; but 
 the moment she saw him she feebly made signs and sounds 
 which showed that she was just as resolved as ever not to let 
 him come near her. He was so overwhelmed that Mr. Gale 
 was obliged to help him out of the room. No other person 
 was allowed to see the patient. Mr. Dexter and Mrs. Beauly 
 made their inquiries outside the door, and were not invited 
 in. As the evening drew on the doctors sat on either side of 
 the bed, silently watching her, silently waiting for her death. 
 
 "Toward eight o'clock she seemed to have lost the use 
 of her hands and arms : they lay helpless outside the bed- 
 riot lies. A little later she sank into a sort of dull sleep. 
 Little by little the sound of her heavy breathing grew faint- 
 er. At twenty minutes past nine Doctor Jerome told me to 
 bring the lamp to the bedside. He looked at her, and put 
 his hand on her heart. Then he said to me, 'You can go 
 down-stairs, nurse: it is all over.' He turned to Mr. Gale. 
 'Will you inquire if Mr. Macallan can see us?' he said. I 
 opened the door for Mr. Gale, and followed him out. Doctor 
 Jerome called me back for a moment, and told me to give 
 him the key of the door. I did so, of course ; but I thought 
 this also very strange. When I got down to the servants' 
 hall I found there was a general feeling that something was 
 wrong. We were all uneasy without knowing why. 
 
 ' A little later the two doctors left the house. Mr. Maral- 
 lan had been quite incapable of ivc-civing them and hearing
 
 124 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 what they had to say. In this difficulty they had spoken 
 privately with Mr. Dexter, as Mr. Macallan's old friend, and 
 the only gentleman then staying at Gleninch. 
 
 "Before bed-time I went up-stairs to prepare the remains 
 of the deceased lady for the coffin. The room in which she 
 lay was locked, the door leading into Mr. Macallan's room 
 being secured, as well as the door leading into the corridor. 
 The keys had been taken away by Mr. Gale. Two of the 
 men-servants were posted outside the bedroom to keep watch. 
 They were to be relieved at four in the morning that was 
 all they could tell me. 
 
 " In the absence of any explanations or directions, I took 
 the liberty of knocking at the door of Mr. Dexter's room. 
 From his lips I first heard the startling news. Both the doc- 
 tors had refused to give the usual certificate of death ! There 
 was to be a medical examination of the body the next 
 morning." 
 
 There the examination of the nurse, Christina Ormsay, 
 came to an end. 
 
 Ignorant as I was of the law, I could see what impression 
 the evidence (so far) was intended to produce on the minds 
 of the jury. After first showing that my husband had had 
 two opportunities of administering the poison once in the 
 medicine and once in the tea the counsel for the Crown led 
 the jury to infer that the prisoner had taken those opportuni- 
 ties to rid himself of an ugly and jealous wife, whose detest- 
 able temper he could no longer endure. 
 
 Having directed his examination to the attainment of this 
 object, the Lord Advocate had done with the witness. The 
 Dean of Faculty acting in the prisoner's interests then 
 rose to bring out the favorable side of the wife's character 
 by cross-examining the nurse. If he succeeded in this at- 
 tempt, the jury might reconsider their conclusion that the 
 wife was a person who had exasperated her husband beyond 
 endurance. In that case, where (so far) was the husband's 
 motive for poisoning her? and where was the presumption 
 of the prisoner's guilt ? 
 
 Pressed by this skillful lawyer, the nurse was obliged to 
 exhibit my husband's first wife under an entirely new aspect. 
 Here is the substance of what the Dean of Faculty extracted 
 from Christina Ormsay :
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 125 
 
 * 
 
 "I persist in declaring that Mrs. Macallan had a most vio- 
 lent temper. But she was certainly in the habit of making 
 amends tor the offense that she gave by her violence. When 
 she was quiet again, she always made her excuses to me, 
 and she made them with a good grace. Her manners were 
 engaging at such times as these. She spoke and acted like 
 a well-bred lady. Then, again, as to her personal appear- 
 ance. Plain as she was in face, she had a good figure ; her 
 hands and feet, I was told, had been modeled by a sculptor. 
 She had a very pleasant voice, and she was reported when 
 in health to sing beautifully. She was also (if her maid's 
 account was to be trusted) a pattern in the matter of dress- 
 ing for the other ladies in the neighborhood. ' Then, as to 
 Mrs. Beauly, though she was certainly jealous of the beauti- 
 ful young widow, she had shown at the same time that she 
 was capable of controlling that feeling. It was through Mrs. 
 Macallan that Mrs. Beauly was in the house. Mrs. Beauly 
 had wished to postpone her visit on account of the state of 
 Mrs. Macallan's health. It was Mrs. Macallan herself not 
 her husband who decided that Mrs. Beauly should not be 
 disappointed, and should pay her visit to Gleninch then and 
 there. Further, Mrs. Macallan (in spite of her temper) was 
 popular with her friends and popular with her servants. 
 There was hardly a dry eye in the house when it was known 
 she was dying. And, further still, in those little domestic 
 disagreements at which the nurse had been present, Mr. Mac- 
 allan had never lost his temper, and had never used harsh 
 language : he seemed to be more sorry than angry when the 
 quarrels took place." Moral for the jury : Was this the sort 
 of woman who would exasperate a man into poisoning her;' 
 And was this the sort of man who would be capable of poi- 
 soning his wife? 
 
 Having produced this salutary counter -impression, the 
 Dean of Faculty sat down ; and the medical witnesses were 
 called next. 
 
 Here the evidence was simply irresistible. 
 
 Doctor Jerome and Mr. Gale positively swore that the 
 symptoms of the illness were the symptoms of poisoning by 
 arsenic. The surgeon who had performed the post-mortem 
 examination followed. He positively swore that the appear- 
 ance of the internal organs proved Doctor Jerome and Mr. 
 Gale to be right in declaring that their patient had died
 
 126 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 poisoned. Lastly, to complete this overwhelming testimony, 
 two analytical chemists actually produced in Court the ar- 
 senic which they had found in the body, in a quantity ad- 
 mittedly sufficient to have killed two persons instead of one. 
 In the face of such evidence as this, cross-examination was a 
 mere form. The first Question raised by the Trial Did the 
 Woman Die Poisoned? was answered in the affirmative, 
 and answered beyond the possibility of doubt. 
 
 The next witnesses called were witnesses concerned with 
 the question that now followed the obscure and terrible 
 question, Who Poisoned Her? 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 SECOND QUESTION WHO POISONED HER? 
 
 THE evidence of the doctors and the chemists closed the 
 proceedings on the first day of the Trial. 
 
 On the second day the evidence to be produced by the 
 prosecution was anticipated with a general feeling of curios- 
 ity and interest. The Court was now to hear what had been 
 seen and done by the persons officially appointed to verify 
 such cases of suspected crime as the case which had occurred 
 at Gleninch. The Procurator-Fiscal being the person offi- 
 cially appointed to direct the preliminary investigations of 
 the law was the first witness called on the second day of 
 the Trial. 
 
 Examined by the Lord Advocate, the Fiscal gave his evi- 
 dence, as follows : 
 
 " On the twenty-sixth of October I received a communica- 
 tion from Doctor Jerome, of Edinburgh, and from Mr. Alex- 
 ander Gale, medical practitioner, residing in the village or 
 hamlet of Dingdovie, near Edinburgh. The communication 
 related to the death, under circumstances of suspicion, of 
 Mrs. Eustace Macallan, a^ her husband's house, hard by Ding- 
 dovie, called Gleninch. There were also forwarded to me, 
 inclosed in the document just mentioned, two reports. One 
 described the results of a post-mortem examination of the 
 deceased lady, and the other stated the discoveries made 
 after a chemical analysis of certain of the interior organs of 
 her body. The result in both instances proved to demon-
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 1 '_' 7 
 
 stration that Mrs. Eustace Macallan bad died of poisoning by 
 arsenic. 
 
 " Under these circumstances, I set in motion a search and 
 inquiry in the house at Qfoninch and elsewhere, simply for 
 the purpose of throwing light on the circumstances which 
 had attended the lady's death. 
 
 " No criminal charge in connection with the death wa^ 
 made at my office against any person, either in the com- 
 munication which I -received from the medical men or in 
 any other form. The investigations at Gleninch and else- 
 where, beginning on the twenty-sixth of October, w-ere not 
 completed until the twenty-eighth. Upon this latter date 
 acting on certain discoveries which were reported to me, 
 and on my own examination of letters and other documents 
 brought to my office I made a criminal charge against the 
 prisoner, and obtained a warrant for his apprehension. He 
 was examined before the Sheriff on the twenty-ninth of Oc- 
 tober, and was committed for trial before this Court." 
 
 The Fiscal having made his statement, and having been 
 cross-examined (on technical matters only), the persons em- 
 ployed in his office were called next. These men had a story 
 of startling interest to tell. Theirs were the fatal discover- 
 ies which had justified the Fiscal in charging my husband 
 with the murder of his wife. The first of the witnesses was 
 a sheriff's officer. He gave his name as Isaiah Schoolcraft. 
 
 Examined by Mr. Drew Advocate-Depute, and counsel 
 for the Crown, with the Lord Advocate Isaiah Schoolcraft 
 said : 
 
 "I got a warrant on the twenty-sixth of October to go to 
 the country-house near Edinburgh called Gleninch. I took 
 with me Robert Lorrie, assistant to the Fiscal. We first ex- 
 amined the room in which Mrs. Eustace Macallan had died. 
 On the bed, and on a movable table which was attached to 
 it, we found books and writing materials, and a paper con- 
 taining some unfinished verses in manuscript, afterward iden- 
 tified as being in the handwriting of the deceased. We in- 
 losnl these articles in paper, and sealed them up. 
 
 " We next opened an Indian cabinet in the bedroom. Here 
 we found many more verses on many more sheets of paper in 
 the same handwriting. We also discovered, first some let- 
 ters, and next a crumpled piece of paper thrown aside in a 
 corner of one of the shelves. On closer examination, a chem-
 
 128 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 ist's printed label was discovered on this morsel of paper. 
 We also found in the folds of it a few scattered grains of 
 some white powder. The paper and the letters were care- 
 fully inclosed, and sealed up as before. 
 
 " Further investigation of the room revealed nothing which 
 could throw any light on the purpose of our inquiry. We 
 examined the clothes, jewelry, and books of the deceased. 
 These we left under lock and key. We also found her dress- 
 ing-case, which we protected by seals, and took away with 
 us to the Fiscal's office, along with all the other articles that 
 we had discovered in the room. 
 
 " The next day we continued our examination in the house, 
 having received iu the interval fresh instructions from the 
 Fiscal. We began our work in the bedroom communicating 
 with the room in which Mrs. Macallan had died. It had 
 been kept locked since the death. Finding nothing of any 
 importance here, we went next to another room on the same 
 floor, in which we were informed the prisoner was then lying 
 ill in bed. 
 
 " His illness was described to us as a nervous complaint, 
 caused by the death of his wife, and by the proceedings which 
 had followed it. He was reported to be quite incapable of 
 exerting himself, and quite unfit to see strangers. We in- 
 sisted nevertheless (in deference to our instructions) on ob- 
 taining admission to his room. He made no reply when we 
 inquired whether he had or had not removed any thing from 
 the sleeping-room next to his late wife's, which he usually 
 occupied, to the sleeping-room in which he now lay. All he 
 did was to close his eyes, as if he were too feeble to speak 
 to us or to notice us. Without further disturbing him, we 
 began to examine the room and the different objects in it. 
 
 " While we were so employed, we were interrupted by a 
 strange sound. We likened it to the rumbling of wheels in 
 the corridor outside. 
 
 "The door opened, and there came swiftly in a gentleman 
 a cripple wheeling himself along in a chair. He wheeled 
 his chair straight up to a little table which stood by the pris- 
 oner's bedside, and said something to him in a whisper too 
 low to be overheard. The prisoner opened his eyes, and 
 quickly answered by a sign. We informed the crippled gen- 
 tleman, quite respectfully, that we could not allow him to be 
 in the room at this time. He appeared to think nothing of
 
 ; I TOOK HIS CHAIR AND PULLED IT AWAY."
 
 TIIK LAW AND TMIC l.ADV. 129 
 
 what we said. lie only answered, 'My name is Dexter. I 
 am one of Mr. Macallan's old friends. It is you who are in- 
 truding here not I.' We again notified to him that he must 
 leave the room ; and we pointed out particularly that he had 
 got his chair in such a position against the bedside table as 
 to prevent us from examining it. He only laughed. ' Can't 
 you see for yourselves,' he said, 'that it is a table, and noth- 
 ing more?' In reply to this we warned him that we were 
 acting under a legal warrant, and that he might get into 
 trouble if he obstructed us in the execution of our duty. 
 Finding there was no moving him by fair means, I took his 
 chair and pulled it away, while Robert Lorrie laid hold of 
 the table and carried it to the other end of the room. The 
 crippled gentleman flew into a furious rage with me for pre- 
 suming to touch his chair. ' My chair is Me,' he said : ' how 
 dare you lay hands on Me?' I first opened the door, and 
 then, by way of accommodating him, gave the chair a good 
 push behind with my stick instead of my hand, and so sent 
 it and him safely and swiftly out of the room. 
 
 "Having locked the door, so as to pi-event any further 
 intrusion, I joined Robert Lorrie in examining the bedside 
 table. It had one drawer in it, and that drawer we found 
 secured. 
 
 *' We asked the prisoner for the key. 
 
 "He flatly refused to give it to us, and said we had no 
 right to unlock his drawers. He was so angry that he even 
 declared it was lacky for us he was too weak to rise from his 
 bed. I answered civilly that our duty obliged us to examine 
 the drawer, and that if lie still declined to produce the key, 
 he would only oblige us to take the table away and have the 
 lock opened by a smith. 
 
 " While we were still disputing there was a knock at the 
 door of the room. 
 
 "I opened the door cautiously. Instead of the crippled 
 gentleman, whom I had expected to see again, there was an- 
 other stranger standing outside. The prisoner bailed him as 
 a friend and neighbor, and eagerly called upon him for pro- 
 tection from us. We found this second gent leman pleasant 
 enough to deal with. He informed us readily that he had 
 been sent for by Mr. Dexter, and that he was himself a law- 
 yer, and he asked to see our warrant. Having looked at it, 
 he at once informed the prisoner (evidently very much to the
 
 130 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 prisoner's surprise) that he must submit to have the drawer 
 examined, under protest. And then, without more ado, he 
 got the key, and opened the table drawer for us himself. 
 
 " We found inside several letters, and a large book with a 
 lock to it, having the words 'My Diary' inscribed on it in 
 gilt letters. As a matter of course, we took possession of 
 the letters and the Diary, and sealed them up, to be given 
 to the Fiscal. At the same time the gentleman wrote out 
 a protest on the prisoner's behalf, and handed us his card. 
 The card informed us that he was Mr. Playmore, now one of 
 the Agents for the prisoner. The card and the protest were 
 deposited, with the other documents, in the care of the Fis- 
 cal. No other discoveries of any importance were made at 
 Gleninch. 
 
 " Our next inquiries took us to Edinburgh to the drug- 
 gist whose label we had found on the crumpled morsel of 
 paper, and to other druggists likewise whom we were in- 
 structed to question. On the twenty-eighth of October the 
 Fiscal was in possession of all the information that we could 
 collect, and our duties for the time being came to an end." 
 
 This concluded the evidence of Schoolcraft and Lorrie. It 
 was not shaken on cross-examination, and it was plainly un- 
 favorable to the prisoner. 
 
 Matters grew worse still when the next witnesses were 
 called. The druggist whose label had been found on the 
 crumpled bit of paper now appeared on the stand, to make 
 the position of my unhappy husband more critical than ever. 
 
 Andrew Kinlay> druggist, of Edinburgh, deposed as fol- 
 lows: 
 
 " I keep a special registry book of the poisons sold by me. 
 I pi-oduce the book. On the date therein mentioned the 
 prisoner at the bar, Mr. Eustace Macallan, came into my 
 shop, and said that he wished to purchase some arsenic. I 
 asked him what it was wanted for. He told me it was want- 
 ed by his gardener, to be used, in solution, for the killing of 
 insects in the greenhouse. At the same time he mentioned 
 his name Mr. Macallan, of Gleninch. I at once directed my 
 assistant to put up the arsenic (two ounces of it), and I made 
 the necessary entry in my book. Mr. Macallan signed the 
 entry, and I signed it afterward as witness. He paid for the 
 arsenic, and took it away with him wrapped up in two pa- 
 pers, the outer wrapper being labeled with my name and
 
 TUB LAW AND TIIK I. ADV. 131 
 
 address, and with the word 'Poison' in large letters exact- 
 ly like the label now produced on the piece of paper found 
 at Gleninch." 
 
 The next witness, Peter Stockdale (also a druggist of 
 Edinburgh), followed, and said : 
 
 " The prisoner at the bar called at my shop on the date 
 indicated on my register, some days later than the date in- 
 dicated in the register of Mr. Kinlay. He wished to pur- 
 chase sixpenny-worth of arsenic. My assistant, to whom he 
 had addressed himself, called me. It is a rule in my shop 
 that no one sells poisons but myself. I asked the prisoner 
 what he wanted the arsenic for. He answered that he want- 
 ed it for killing rats at his house, called Gleninch. I said, 
 * Have I the honor of speaking to Mr. Macallan, of Gleninch ?' 
 He said that was his name. I sold him the arsenic about 
 an ounce and a half and labeled the bottle in which I put 
 it with the word 'Poison' in my own handwriting. He sign- 
 ed the register, and took the arsenic away with him, after 
 paying for it." 
 
 The cross-examination of the two men succeeded in assert- 
 ing certain technical objections to their evidence. But the 
 terrible fact that my husband himself had actually purchased 
 the arsenic in both cases remained unshaken. 
 
 The next witnesses the gardener and the cook at Glen- 
 inch wound the chain of hostile evidence around the pris- 
 oner more mercilessly still. 
 
 On examination the gardener said, on his oath : 
 
 " I never received any arsenic from the prisoner, or from 
 any one else, at the date to which you refer, or at any other 
 date. I never used any such thing as a solution of arsenic, 
 or ever allowed the men working under me to use it, in the 
 conservatories or in the garden at Gleninch. I disapprove 
 of arsenic as a means of destroying noxious insects infesting 
 flowers and plants." 
 
 The cook, being called next, spoke as positively as the gar- 
 dener : 
 
 " Neither my master nor any other person gave me any 
 arsenic to destroy rats at any time. No such thing was want- 
 ed. I declare, on my oath, that I never saw any rats in or 
 about the house, or ever heard of any rats infesting it." 
 
 Other household servants at Gleninch gave similar evi- 
 dence. Nothing could l>c extracted from them on or.
 
 132 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 animation except that there might have been rats in the 
 house, though they were not a Ware of it. The possession 
 of the poison was traced directly to my husband, and to no 
 one else. That he had bought it was actually proved, and 
 that he had kept it was the one conclusion that the evidence 
 justified. 
 
 The witnesses who came next did their best to press the 
 charge against the prisoner home to him. Having the arsenic 
 in his possession, what had he done with it? The evidence 
 led the jury to infer what he had done with it. 
 
 The prisoner's valet deposed that his master had rang for 
 him at twenty minutes to ten on the morning of the day on 
 which his mistress died, and had ordered a cup of tea for 
 her. The man had received the order at the open door of 
 Mrs. Macallan's room, and could positively swear that no 
 other person but his master was there at the time. 
 
 The under-housemaid, appearing next, said that she had 
 made the tea, and had herself taken it up-stairs before ten 
 o'clock to Mrs. Macallan's room. Her master had received 
 it from her at the open door. She could look in, and could 
 see that he was alone in her mistress's room. 
 
 The nurse, Christina Ormsay, being recalled, repeated what 
 Mrs. Macallan had said to her on the day when that lady 
 was first taken ill. She had said (speaking to the nurse at 
 six o'clock in the morning), "Mr. Macallan came in about an 
 hour since ; he found me still sleepless, and gave me my com- 
 posing draught." This was at five o'clock in the morning, 
 while Christina Ormsay was asleep on the sofa. The nurse 
 further swore that she had looked at the bottle containing 
 the composing mixture, and had seen by the measuring 
 marks on the bottle that a dose had been poured out since 
 the dose previously given, administered by herself. 
 
 On this occasion special interest was excited by the cross- 
 examination. The closing questions put to the under-house- 
 inaid and the nurse revealed for the first time what the nat- 
 ure of the defense was to be. 
 
 Cross-examining the under-honsemaid, the Dean of Faculty 
 said : 
 
 " Did you ever notice when you were setting Mrs. Eustace 
 Macallan's room to rights whether the water left in the basin 
 was of a blackish or bluish color?" The witness answered, 
 " I never noticed any thing of the sort."
 
 THr, LAW AND THK LADY. 133 
 
 The Dean of Faculty went on : 
 
 "Did you ever tiiul under the pillow of the bed, or in any 
 other hiding-place in Mrs. Macallan's room, any books or 
 pamphlets telling of remedies used for improving a bad com- 
 plexion ?" The witness answered, " No." 
 
 The Dean of Faculty persisted : 
 
 "Did you ever hear Mrs. Macallan speak of arsenic, taken 
 as a wash or taken as a medicine, as a good thing to improve 
 the complexion ?" The witness answered, " Never." 
 
 Similar questions were next put to the nurse, and were all 
 answered by this witness also in the negative. 
 
 Here, then, in spite of the negative answers, was the plan 
 of the defense made dimly visible for the first time to the 
 jury and to the audience. By way of preventing the possi- 
 bility of a mistake in so serious a matter, the Chief Judge 
 (the Lord Justice Clerk) put this plain question, when the 
 witnesses had retired, to the Counsel for the defense : 
 
 "The Court and the jury," said his lordship, "wish dis- 
 tinctly to understand the object of your cross-examination 
 of the housemaid and the nurse. Is it the theory of the de- 
 fense that Mrs. Eustace Macallan used the arsenic which her 
 husband purchased for the purpose of improving the defects 
 of her complexion ?" 
 
 The Dean of Faculty answered : 
 
 "That is what we say, my lord, and what we propose to 
 prove as the foundation of the defense. We can not dispute 
 the medical evidence which declares that Mrs. Macallan died 
 poisoned. But we assert that she died of an overdose of ar- 
 senic, ignbrantly taken, in the privacy of her own room, as a 
 remedy for the defects the proved and admitted defects 
 of her complexion. The prisoner's Declaration before the 
 Sheriff expressly sets forth that he purchased the arsenic at 
 the request of his wife." 
 
 The Lord Justice Clerk inquired upon this if there were 
 any objection on the part of either of the learned counsel to 
 have- the Declaration read in Court before the Trial proceed- 
 ed further. 
 
 To this the Dean of Faculty replied that he would be glad 
 to have the Declaration read. If he might use the expres- 
 sion, it would usefiillv pave the way in the minds of the jury 
 lor the defense which he had to submit to them. 
 
 The Lord Advocate (speaking on the other side) was hap-
 
 134 TIIE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 py to be able to accommodate his learned brother in this mat- 
 ter. So long as the mere assertions which the Declaration 
 contained were not supported by proof, he looked upon that 
 document as evidence for the prosecution, and he too was 
 quite willing to have it read. 
 
 Thereupon the prisoner's Declaration of his innocence 
 on being charged before the Sheriif with the murder of his 
 wife was read, in the following terms: 
 
 " I bought the two packets of arsenic, on each occasion at 
 my wife's own request. On the first occasion she told rne 
 the poison was wanted by the gardener for use in the conserv- 
 atories. On the second occasion she said it was required 
 by the cook for ridding the lower part of the house of rats. 
 
 "I handed both packets of arsenic to my wife immediately 
 on my return home. I had nothing to do with the poison 
 after buying it. My wife was the person who gave orders to 
 the gardener and cook not I. I never held any communica- 
 tion with either of them. 
 
 " I asked my wife no questions about the use of the arsen- 
 ic, feeling no interest in the subject. I never entered the 
 conservatories for months together; I care little about flow- 
 ers. As for the rats, I left the killing of them to the cook and 
 the other servants, just as I should have left any other part 
 of the domestic business to the cook and the other servants. 
 
 " My wife never told me she wanted the arsenic to improve 
 her complexion. Surely I should be the last person admitted 
 to the knowledge of such a secret of her toilet as that V I 
 implicitly believed what she told me, viz., that the poison was 
 wanted for the purposes specified by the gardener and the cook. 
 
 "I assert positively that I lived on friendly terms with 
 my wife, allowing, of course, for the little occasional disagree- 
 ments and misunderstandings of married life. Any sense of 
 disappointment in connection with my marriage which I might 
 have felt privately I conceived it to be my duty as a husband 
 and a gentleman to conceal from my wife. I was not only 
 shocked and grieved by her untimely death I was filled 
 with fear that I had not, with all my care, behaved affection- 
 ately enough to her in her lifetime. 
 
 "Furthermore, I solemnly declare that I know no more of 
 how she took the arsenic found in her body than the babe 
 unborn. I am innocent even of the thought of harming that 
 unhappy woman. I administered the composing draught ex-
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 135 
 
 actly as I found it in the bottle. I afterward gave her the 
 cup of tea exactly as I received it from the under- house- 
 maid's hand. I never had access to the arsenic after I placed 
 the two packages in my wife's possession. I am entirely ig- 
 norant of what she did with them or of where she kept them. 
 I declare before God I am innocent of the horrible crime with 
 which I am charged." 
 
 With the reading of those true and touching words the pro- 
 ceedings on the second day of the Trial came to an end. 
 
 So far, I must own, the effect on me of reading the Report 
 was to depress my spirits and to lower my hopes. The 
 whole weight of the evidence at the close of the second day 
 was against my unhappy husband. Woman as I was, and 
 partisan as I was, I could plainly see that. 
 
 The merciless Lord Advocate (I confess I hated him !) had 
 proved (l) that Eustace had bought the poison; (2) that the 
 reason which he had given to the druggists for buying the 
 poison was not the true reason ; (3) that he had had two op- 
 portunities of secretly administering the poison to his wife. 
 On the other side, what had the Dean of Faculty proved ? 
 As yet nothing. The assertions in the prisoner's Declara- 
 tion of his innocence were still, as the Lord Advocate had re- 
 marked, assertions not supported by proof. Not one atom 
 of evidence had been produced to show that it was the wife 
 who had secretly used the arsenic, and used it for her com- 
 plexion. 
 
 My one consolation was that the reading of the Trial had 
 already revealed to me the helpful figures of two friends on 
 whose sympathy I might surely rely. The crippled Mr. Dex- 
 ter had especially shown himself to be a thorough good ally 
 of my husband's. My heart warmed to the man who had 
 moved his chair against the bedside table the man who 
 had struggled to the last to defend Eustace's papers from the 
 wretches who had seized them. I decided then and there 
 that the first person to whom I would confide rny aspirations 
 and my hopes should be Mr. Dexter. If he felt any difficulty 
 about advising me, I would then apply next to the agent, 
 Mr. Playmore the second good friend, who had formally pro- 
 tested against the seizure of my husband's papers. 
 
 Fortified by this resolution, I turned the page, and read 
 the history of the third day of the Trial.
 
 136 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THIRD QUESTION WHAT WAS HIS MOTIVE? 
 
 THE first question (Did the Woman Die Poisoned ?) had 
 been answered, positively. The second question (Who Poi- 
 soned Her ?) had been answered, apparently. There now re- 
 mained the third and final question What was His Motive? 
 The first evidence called in answer to that inquiry was the 
 evidence of relatives and friends of the dead wife. . 
 
 Lady Brydehaven, widow of Rear- Admiral Sir George 
 Brydehaven, examined by Mr. Drew (counsel for the Crown 
 with the Lord Advocate), gave evidence as follows: 
 
 " The deceased lady (Mrs. Eustace Macallan) was my niece. 
 She was the only child of my sister, and she lived under my 
 roof after, the time of her mother's death. I objected to her 
 marriage, on grounds which were considered purely fanciful 
 and sentimental by her other friends. It is extremely pain- 
 ful to me to state the circumstances in public, but I am ready 
 to make the sacrifice if the ends of justice require it. 
 
 " The prisoner at the bar, at the time of which I am now 
 speaking, was staying as a guest in my house. He met with 
 an accident while he was out riding which caused a serious 
 injury to one of his legs. The leg had been previously hurt 
 while he was serving with the army in India. This circum- 
 stance tended greatly to aggravate the injury received in the 
 accident. He was confined to a recumbent position on a sofa 
 for many weeks together; and the ladies in the house took it 
 in turns to sit with him, and while away the weary time by 
 reading to him and talking to him. My niece was foremost 
 among these volunteer nurses. She played admirably on the 
 piano; and the sick man happened most unfortunately, as 
 the event proved to be fond of music. 
 
 "The consequences of the perfectly innocent intercourse 
 thus begun were deplorable consequences for my niece. She 
 became passionately attached to Mr. Eustace Macallan, with- 
 out awakening any corresponding affection on his side. 
 
 " I did my best to interfere, delicately and usefully, while 
 it was still possible to interfere with advantage. Unhappily,
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 137 
 
 mv niece refused to place any confidence in me. She persist- 
 ently denied that she was actuated by any warmer feeling 
 toward Mr. Macallan than a feeling of friendly interest. This 
 made it impossible for me to separate them without openly 
 acknowledging my reason for doing so, and thus producing a 
 scandal which might have affected my niece's reputation. My 
 husband was alive at that time ; and the one thing I could do 
 under the circumstances was the thing I did. I requested him 
 to speak privately to Mr. Macallan, and to appeal to his honor 
 to help us out of the difficulty without prejudice to my niece. 
 
 " Mr. Macallan behaved admirably. He was still helpless. 
 But he made an excuse for leaving us which it was impossi- 
 ble to dispute. In two days after my husband had spoken 
 to him he was removed from the house. 
 
 " The remedy was well intended ; but it came too late, and 
 it utterly failed. The mischief was done. My niece pined 
 away visibly; neither medical help nor change of air and 
 scene did any thing for her. In course of time after Mr. 
 Macallan had recovered from the effects of his accident I 
 found that she was carrying on a clandestine correspondence 
 with him by means of her maid. His letters, I am bound to 
 say, were most considerately and carefully written. Never- 
 theless, I felt it my duty to stop the correspondence. 
 
 "My interference what else could I do but interfere? 
 brought matters to a crisis. One day my niece was missing 
 at breakfast-time. The next day we discovered that the 
 poor infatuated creature had gone to Mr. Macallan's cham- 
 bers in London, and had been found hidden in his bedroom 
 by some bachelor friends who came to visit him. 
 
 " For this disaster Mr. Macallan was in no respect to blame. 
 Hearing footsteps outside, he had only time to take measures 
 for saving her character by concealing her in the nearest room 
 and the nearest room happened to be his bed-chamber. 
 The matter was talked about, of course, and motives were 
 misinterpreted in the vilest manner. My husband had an- 
 other private conversation with Mr. Macallan. He again be- 
 haved admirably. He publicly declared that my niece had 
 visited him as his betrothed wife. In a fortnight from that 
 time he silenced scandal in the one way that was possible 
 he married her. 
 
 "I was alone in opposing the marriage. I thought it at 
 the time what it has proved to be since a fatal mistake.
 
 138 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 " It would have been sad enough if Mr. Macallan had only 
 married her without a particle of love on his side. But to 
 make the prospect more hopeless still, he was at that very 
 time the victim of a misplaced attachment to a lady who was 
 engaged to another man. I am well aware that he compas- 
 sionately denied this, just as he compassionately affected to 
 be in love with my niece when he married her. But his 
 hopeless admiration of the lady whom I have mentioned was 
 a matter of fact notorious among his friends. It may not be 
 amiss to add that her marriage preceded his marriage. He 
 had irretrievably lost the woman he really loved he was 
 without a hope or an aspiration in life when he took pity 
 on my niece. 
 
 " In conclusion, I can only repeat that no evil which could 
 have happened (if she had remained a single woman) would 
 have been comparable, in my opinion, to the evil of such a 
 marriage as this. Never, I sincerely believe, were two more 
 ill-assorted persons united in the bonds of matrimony than 
 the prisoner at the bar and his deceased wife." 
 
 The evidence of this witness produced a strong sensation 
 among the audience, and had a marked effect on the minds 
 of the jury. Cross-examination forced Lady Brydehaven 
 to modify some of her opinions, and to acknowledge that 
 the hopeless attachment of the prisoner to another woman 
 was a matter of rumor only. But the facts in her narrative 
 remained unshaken, and, for that one reason, they invested 
 the crime charged against the prisoner with an appearance 
 of possibility, which it had entirely failed to assume during 
 the earlier part of the Trial. 
 
 Two other ladies (intimate friends of Mrs. Eustace Mac- 
 allan) were called next. They differed from Lady Bryde- 
 haven in their opinions on the propriety of the marriage, but 
 on all the material points they -supported her testimony, and 
 confirmed the serious impression which the first witness had 
 produced on every person in Court. 
 
 \JThe next evidence which the prosecution proposed to put 
 in was the silent evidence of the letters and the Diary found 
 at Glen inch. 
 
 In answer to a question from the Bench, the Lord Advo- 
 cate stated that the letters were written by friends of the 
 prisoner and his deceased wife, and that passages in them 
 bore directly on the terms on which the two associated in
 
 THE LAW AXI) THE LADY. 139 
 
 their married life. The Diary was still more valuable as 
 evidence. It contained the prisoner's daily record of do- 
 mestic events, and of the thoughts and feelings which they 
 aroused in him at the timefl 
 ^ t ^A. most painful scene followed this explanation. 
 
 "Writing, as I do, long after the events took place, I still 
 can not prevail upon myself to describe in detail what my 
 appy husband said and did at this distressing period of 
 the Trial. , Deeply affected while Lady Brydehaven was giv- 
 ing her evidence, he had with difficulty restrained himself 
 from interrupting her. He now lost all control over his 
 feelings. In piercing tones, which rang through the Court, 
 he protested against the contemplated violation of his own 
 most sacred secrets and his wife's most sacred secrets. "Hang 
 me, innocent as I am !" he cried, " but spare me thatF The 
 effect of this terrible outbreak on the audience is reported 
 to have been indescribable. Some of the women present 
 were in hysterics. The Judges interfered from the Bench, 
 but with no good result. Quiet was at length restored by 
 the Dean of Faculty, who succeeded in soothing the prison- 
 er, and who then addressed the Judges, pleading for indul- 
 gence to his unhappy client in most touching and eloquent 
 language. The speech, a masterpiece of impromptu orato- 
 ry, concluded with a temperate yet strongly urged protest 
 against the reading of the papers discovered at Gleninch. J 
 
 The three Judges retired to consider the legal question 
 submitted to them. The sitting was suspended for more 
 than half an hour. 
 
 /_As usual in such cases, the excitement in the Court com- 
 municated itself to the crowd outside in the streeO The 
 general opinion here led, as it was supposed, by one orthe 
 clerks or other inferior persons connected with the legal pro- 
 ceedings was decidedly adverse to the prisoner's chance of 
 escaping a sentence of death. "If the letters and the Diary 
 arc read," said the brutal spokesman of the mob, "the letters 
 and the Diary will hang him." 
 
 On the return of the Judges into Court, it was announced 
 that they had decided, by a majority of two to one, on per- 
 mitting the documents in dispute to be produced in evidence. 
 Each of the Judges, in turn, gave his reasons for the decision 
 at which he had arrived. This done, the Trial proceeded. 
 The reading of the extracts from the letters and the extracts 
 
 C +V\ TV V*
 
 140 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 The first letters produced were the letters found in the In- 
 dian cabinet in Mrs. Eustace Macallan's room. They were 
 addressed to the deceased lady by intimate (female) friends 
 of hers, with whom she was accustomed to correspond. Three 
 separate extracts from letters written by three different cor- 
 respondents were selected to be read in Court. 
 
 FIRST CORRESPONDENT: "I despair, my dearest Sara, of 
 being able to tell you how your last letter has distressed me. 
 Pray forgive me if I own to thinking that your very sensitive 
 nature exaggerates or misinterprets, quite unconsciously, of 
 course, the neglect that you experience at the hands of your 
 husband. I can not say any thing about his peculiarities of 
 character, because I am not well enough acquainted with 
 him to know what they are. But/my dear, I am much old- 
 er than you, and I have had a much longer experience than 
 yours of what somebody calls ' the lights and shadows of 
 married life.' Speaking from that experience, I must tell 
 you what I have observed. Young married women, like 
 you, who are devotedly attached to their husbands, are apt 
 to make one very serious mistake. As a rule, they all ex- 
 pect too much from their husbands. Men, my poor Sara, 
 are not like us. Their love, even when it is quite sincere, is 
 not like our love. It does not last as it does with us. It is 
 not the one hope and one thought of their lives, as it is with 
 us. We have no alternative, even when we most truly re- 
 spect and love them, but to make allowance for this differ- 
 ence between the man's nature and the woman's. I do not 
 for one moment excuse your husband's coldness. He is 
 wrong, for example, in never looking at you when he speaks 
 to you, and in never noticing the efforts that you make to 
 please him. He is worse than wrong he is really cruel, if 
 you like in never returning your kiss when you kiss him. 
 But, my dear, are you quite sure that he is always designedly 
 cold and cruel? May not his conduct be sometimes the re- 
 sult of troubles and anxieties which weigh on his mind, and 
 which are troubles and anxieties that you can not share ? 
 If you try to look at his behavior in this light, you will un- 
 derstand many things which puzzle and pain you now. Be 
 patient with him, my child. Make no complaints, and never 
 approach him with your caresses at times when his mind is 
 preoccupied or his temper ruffled. This may be hard advice 
 to follow, loving him as ardently as you do. But, rely on
 
 THE LAW AND TUB LADY. 141 
 
 it, the secret of happiness for us women is to be found (alas ! 
 only too often) in such exercise of restraint and resignation 
 as your old friend now recommends. Think, my dear, over 
 what I have written, and let me hear from you again." 
 
 SECOND CORRESPONDENT : " How can you be so foolish, 
 Sara, as to waste your love on such a cold-blooded brute as 
 your husband seems to be? To be sure, I am not married 
 yet, or perhaps I should not be so surprised at you. But I 
 shall be married one of these days, and if my husband ever 
 treat me as Mr. Macallan treats you, I shall insist on a sep- 
 aration. I declare, I think I would rather be actually beat- 
 en, like the women among the lower orders, than be treated 
 with the polite neglect and contempt which you describe. 
 I burn with indignation when I think of it. It must be 
 quite insufferable. Don't bear it any longer, my poor dear. 
 Leave him, and come and stay with me. My brother is a 
 lawyer, as you know. I read to him portions of your letter, 
 and he is of opinion that you might get what he calls a ju- 
 dicial separation. Come and consult him." 
 (^THIRD CORRESPONDENT : " You know, my dear Mrs. Mac- 
 allan, what my experience of men has been. Your letter 
 does not surprise me in the least. Your husband's conduct 
 to you points to one conclusion. He is in love with some 
 other woman. There is Somebody in the dark, who gets 
 from him every thing that he denies to you. I have been 
 through it all and I know ! Don't give way. Make it the 
 business of your life to find out who the creature is. Per- 
 haps there may be more than one of them. It doesn't mat- 
 ter. One or many, if you can only discover them, you may 
 make his existence as miserable to him as he makes your ex- 
 istence to you. If you want my experience to help you, say 
 the word, and it is freely at your service. I can corae and 
 stay with_you at Gleninch any time after the fourth of next 
 month." 
 
 With those abominable lines the readings from the letters 
 of the women came to an end. The first and longest of the 
 Extracts produced the most vivid impression in Court. Evi- 
 dently the writer was in this case a worthy and sensible per- 
 son. It was generally felt, however, that all three of the 
 letters, no matter how widely they might differ in tone, jus- 
 tified the same conclusion. The wife's position at Glen inch
 
 142 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 (if the wife's account of it were to be trusted) was the posi- 
 tion of a neglected and an unhappy woman. 
 
 The correspondence of the prisoner, which had been found, 
 with his Diary, in the locked bed-table drawer, was produced 
 next. The letters in this case were with one exception all 
 written by men. Though the tone of them was moderation 
 itself as compared with the second and third of the women's 
 letters, the conclusion still pointed the same way. The life 
 of the husband at Gleninch appeared to be just as intoler- 
 able as the life of the wife. 
 
 For example, one of the prisoner's male friends wrote in- 
 viting him to make a yacht voyage around the world. An- 
 other suggested an absence of six months on the Continent. 
 A third recommended field-sports and fishing. The one ob- 
 ject aimed at by all the writers was plainly to counsel a 
 separation, more or less plausible and more or less complete, 
 between the married pair. 
 
 The last letter read was addressed to the prisoner in a 
 woman's handwriting, and was signed by a woman's Chris- 
 tian name only. 
 
 " Ah, my poor Eustace, what a cruel destiny is ours !" the 
 letter began. " When I think of your life, sacrificed to that 
 wretched woman, my heart bleeds for you. If we had been 
 man and wife if it had been my unutterable happiness to 
 love and cherish the best, the dearest of men what a para- 
 dise of our own we might have lived in ! what delicious hours 
 we might have known ! But regret is vain ; we are sepa- 
 rated in this life separated by ties which we both mourn, 
 and yet which we must both respect. My Eustace, there is 
 a world beyond this. There our souls will fly to meet each 
 other, and mingle in one long heavenly embrace in a rapture 
 forbidden to us on earth. The misery described in your let- 
 ter oh, why, why did you marry her? -has wrung this con- 
 fession of feeling from me. Let it comfort you, but let no 
 other eyes see it. Burn my rashly written lines, and look 
 (as I look) to the better life which you may yet share with 
 your own HELENA." 
 
 The reading of this outrageous letter provoked a question 
 from the Bench. One of the Judges asked if the writer had 
 attached any date or address to her letter. 
 
 In answer to this the Lord Advocate stated that neither
 
 THE LAW AND THK LADY. 14J3 
 
 the one nor the other appeared. The envelope showed that 
 the letter had been posted in London. "We propose," the 
 learned counsel continued, " to read certain passages from 
 the prisoner's Diary, in which the name signed at the end of 
 the letter occurs more than once; and we may possibly find 
 other means of identifying the writer, to the satisfaction of 
 your lordships, before the Trial is over." 
 
 The promised passages from my husband's private Diary 
 were now read. The first extract related to a period of near- 
 ly a year before the death of Mrs. Eustace Macallan's death. 
 It was expressed in these terms : 
 
 " News, by this morning's post, which has quite over- 
 whelmed me. Helena's husband died suddenly two days 
 since of heart-disease. She is free my beloved Helena is 
 free ! And I ? 
 
 " I am fettered to a woman with whom I have not a single 
 feeling in common. Helena is lost to me, by my own act. 
 Ah ! I can understand now, as I never understood before, 
 how irresistible temptation can be, and how easily sometimes 
 crime may follow it. I had better shut up these leaves for 
 the night. It maddens me to no purpose to think of my 
 position or to write of it." 
 
 The next passage, dated a few days later, dwelt on the 
 same subject. 
 
 " Of all the follies that a man can commit, the greatest is 
 acting on impulse. I acted on impulse when I married the 
 unfortunate creature who is now my wife. 
 
 "Helena was then lost to me, as I too hastily supposed. 
 She had married the man to whom she rashly engaged her 
 self before she met with me. He was younger than I, and, 
 to all appearance, heartier and stronger than I. So far as I 
 could see, my fate was sealed for life. Helena had written 
 her farewell letter, taking leave of me in this world for good. 
 My prospects were closed ; my hopes had ended. I had not 
 an aspiration left; I had no necessity to stimulate me to take 
 refuge in work. A chivalrous action,^in exertion of noble 
 self-denial, seemed to be all that was left to me, all that I 
 was tit for. 
 
 "The circumstances of the moment adapted themselves, 
 
 with a fatal facility, to this idea. The ill-fated woman who 
 
 had become attached to me (Heaven knows without so much 
 
 as the shadow of encouragement on my part!) had, just at 
 
 G
 
 144 \(p?> THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 that time, rashly placed her reputation at the mercy of the 
 world. It rested with me to silence the scandalous tongues 
 that reviled her. With Helena lost to me, happiness was 
 not to be expected. All women were equally indifferent to 
 me. A generous action would be the salvation of this wom- 
 an. Why not perform it ? I married her on that impulse 
 married her just as I might have jumped into the water 
 and saved her if she had been drowning; just as I might 
 have knocked a man down if I had seen him ill-treating her 
 in the street ! 
 
 "And now the woman for whom. I have made this sacri- 
 fice stands between me and my Helena my Helena, free to 
 pour out all the treasures of her love on the man who adores 
 the earth that she touches with her foot ! 
 
 " Fool ! madman ! Why don't I dash out my brains 
 against the wall that I see opposite to me while I write 
 these lines? 
 
 " My gun is there in the corner. I have only to tie a string 
 to the trigger and to put the muzzle to my mouth No ! 
 My mother is alive ; my mother's love is sacred. I have no 
 right to take the life which she gave me. I must suffer and 
 submit. Oh, Helena ! Helena !" 
 
 The third extract one among many similar passages 
 had been written about two months before the death of the 
 prisoner's wife. "More reproaches addressed to me ! There 
 never was such a woman for complaining ; she lives in a per- 
 fect atmosphere of ill-temper and discontent. 
 
 "My new offenses are two in number: I. never ask her to 
 play to me now ; and when she puts on a new dress express- 
 ly to please me, I never notice it. Notice it ! Good Heav- 
 ens ! The effort of my life is not to notice her in any thing 
 she does or says. How could I keep my temper, unless I 
 kept as much as possible out of the way of private interviews 
 with her? And I do keep my temper. I am never hard on 
 her; I never use harsh language to her. She has a double 
 claim on my forbearance she is a woman, and the law has 
 made her my wife. I remember this ; but I am human. 
 The less I see of her except when visitors are present the 
 more certain I can feel of preserving my self-control. 
 , " I wonder what it is that makes her so utterly distasteful 
 to me ? She is a plain woman ; but I have seen uglier women 
 than she whose caresses I could have endured without the
 
 THE LAW AND TIIE LADY. 145 
 
 sense of shrinking that comes over me when I am obliged to 
 submit to her caresses. I keep the feeling hidden from her. 
 She loves me, poor thing and I pity her. I wish I could do 
 more ; I wish I could return in the smallest degree the feel- 
 ing with which she regards me. But no I can only pity 
 her. If she would be content to live on friendly terms with 
 me, and never to exact demonstrations of tenderness, we 
 might get on pretty well. But she wants love. Unfortu- 
 nate creature, she wants love ! 
 
 " Oh, my Helena ! I have no love to give her. My heart 
 is yours. 
 
 " I dreamed last night that this unhappy wife of mine was 
 dead. The dream was so vivid that I actually got out of my 
 bed and opened the door of her room and listened. 
 
 "Her calm, regular breathing was distinctly audible in the 
 stillness of the night. She was in a deep sleep. I closed the 
 door again, and lit my candle and read. Helena was in all 
 my thoughts ; it was hard work to fix my attention on the 
 book. But any thing was better than going to bed again, 
 and dreaming perhaps for the second time that I too was free. 
 
 " What a life mine is ! what a life my wife's is ! If the 
 house were to take, fire, I wonder whether I should make an 
 effort to save myself or to save her ?" 
 
 The last two passages read referred to later dates still. 
 
 " A gleam of brightness has shone over this dismal exist- 
 ence of mine at last. 
 
 " Helena is no longer condemned to the seclusion of wid- 
 owhood. Time enough has passed to permit of her mixing 
 again in society. She is paying visits to friends in our part 
 of Scotland ; and, as she apd I are cousins, it is universally 
 understood that she can not leave the North without also 
 spending a few days at my house. She writes me word that 
 the visit, however embarrassing it may be to us privately, is 
 nevertheless a visit that must be made for the sake of appear- 
 ances. Blessings on appearances ! I shall see this angel in 
 my purgatory and all because Society in Mid-Lothian would 
 think it strange that my cousin should be visiting in my part 
 of Scotland and not visit Me ! 
 
 "But we are to be very careful. Helena says, in so many 
 words, ' I come to see you, Eustace, as a sister. You must 
 receive me as a brother, or not receive me at all. I shall 
 write to your wife to propose the day for, my visit. I shall
 
 146 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 not forget do you not forget that it is by your wife's per- 
 mission that I enter your house.' 
 
 " Only let me see her ! I will submit to any thing to ob- 
 tain the unutterable^ happiness of seeing her!" 
 
 The last extract followed, and consisted of these lines only: 
 
 " A new misfortune ! My wife has fallen ill. She has 
 taken to her bed with a bad rheumatic cold, just at the time 
 appointed for Helena's visit to Gleninch. But on this occa- 
 sion (I gladly own it !) she has behaved charming^. She 
 has written to Helena to say that her illness is not serious 
 enough to render a change necessary in the arrangements, 
 and to make it her particular request that my cousin's visit 
 shall take place upon the day originally decided on. 
 
 "This is a great sacrifice made to me on my wife's part. 
 Jealous of every woman under forty who comes near me, she 
 is, of course, jealous of Helena and she controls herself, and 
 trusts me ! 
 
 " I am bound to show my gratitude for this, and I will 
 show it. From this day forth I vow to live more affection- 
 ately with my wife. I tenderly embraced her this very 
 morning, and I hope, poor soirt, she did not discover the ef- 
 fort that it cost me." 
 
 There the readings from the Diary came to an end. 
 
 The most unpleasant pages in the whole Report of the 
 Trial were to me the pages which contained the extracts 
 from my husband's Diary. There were expressions here and 
 there which not only pained me, but which almost shook 
 Eustace's position in my estimation. I think I would have 
 given every thing I possessed to have had the power of an- 
 nihilating certain lines in the Diary. As for his passionate 
 expressions of love for Mrs. Beauly, every one of them went 
 through me like a sting. He had whispered words quite as 
 warm into my ears in the days of his courtship. I had no 
 reason to doubt that he truly and dearly loved me. But the 
 question was, Had he just as truly and dearly loved Mrs. 
 Beauly before me ? Had she or I won the first love of his 
 heart ? He had declared to me over and over again that he 
 had only fancied himself to be in love before the day when 
 we met. I had believed him then. I determined to believe 
 him still. I did believe him. But I hated Mrs. Beauly ! 
 
 As for the painful impression produced in Court by the
 
 THE LAAV AND THE LADY. 147 
 
 readings from the letters and the Diary, it seemed to be im- 
 possible to increase it. Nevertheless it was perceptibly in- 
 creased. In other words, it Was rendered more unfavorable 
 still toward the prisoner by the evidence of the next and lust 
 witness called on the part of the prosecution. 
 
 William Enzie,uuder-gardeuer at Gleninch, was sworn, and 
 deposed as follows : 
 
 On the twentieth of October, at eleven o'clock in the fore- 
 noon, I was sent to work in the shrubbery, on the side next 
 to the garden called the Dutch Garden. There was a sum- 
 mer-house in the Dutch Garden, having its back set toward 
 the shrubbery. The day was wonderfully fine and warm for 
 the time of year. 
 
 "Passing to my work, I passed the back of the summer- 
 house. I heard voices inside- a man's voice and a lady's 
 voice. The lady's voice was strange to me. The man's 
 voice I recognized as the voice of my master. The ground 
 in the shrubbery was soft, and my curiosity was excited. I 
 stepped up to the back of the summer-house without being 
 heard, and I listened to what was going on inside. 
 
 "The first words I could distinguish were spoken in my 
 master's voice. He said, ' If I could only have foreseen that 
 you might one day be free, what a happy man I might have 
 been !' The lady's voice answered, ' Hush ! you must not 
 talk so.' Mj> master said upon that, 'I must talk of what is 
 in my mind; it is always in my mind that I have lost you.' 
 He stopped a bit there, and. then he said on a sudden, 'Do 
 me one favor, my angel! Promise me not to marry again.' 
 The lady's voice spoke out thereupon sharply enough, 'What 
 do you mean ?' My master said, ' I wish no harm to the un- 
 happy creature who is a burden on my life; but suppose ' 
 ' Suppose nothing,' the lady said ; 'come back to the house.' 
 
 " She led the way into the garden, and turned round, 
 beckoning my master to join her. In that position I saw 
 h<-r lace plainly, and I knew it for the face of the young 
 widow lady who was visiting at the house. "She was point- 
 ed out to me by the head -gardener when she first arrived, 
 for the purpose of warning me that I was not to interfere 
 if I found her picking the flowers. The gardens at Glen- 
 inch were shown to tourists on certain days, and we made 
 a difference, of course, in the matter of the ll<>we.-s between 
 strangers and guests staying in the house. I am quite eer-
 
 148 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 tain of the identity of the lady who was talking with my 
 master. Mrs. Beauly was a comely person and there was 
 no mistaking her for any other than herself. She and my 
 master withdrew together on the way to the house. I heard 
 nothing more of what passed between them." 
 
 This witness was severely cross-examined as to the cor- 
 rectness of his recollection of the talk in the summer-house, 
 and as to his capacity for identifying both the speakers. On 
 certain minor points he was shaken. But he firmly asserted 
 his accui-ate remembrance of the last words exchanged be- 
 tween his master and Mrs. Beauly ; and he personally de- 
 scribed the lady in terms which proved that he had correct- 
 ly identified her. 
 
 With this the answer to the third question raised by the 
 Trial the question of the prisoner's motive for poisoning 
 his wife came to an end. 
 
 The story for the prosecution was now a story told. The 
 stanchest friends of the prisoner in Court were compelled to 
 acknowledge that the evidence thus far pointed clearly and 
 conclusively against him. He seemed to feel this himself. 
 When he withdrew at the close of the third day of the Trial 
 he was so depressed and exhausted that he was obliged to 
 lean on the arm of the governor of the jail. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE EVIDENCE FOR THE DEFENSE. 
 
 THE feeling of interest excited by the Trial was prodig- 
 iously increased on the fourth day. The witnesses for the 
 defense were now to be heard, and first and foremost among 
 them appeared the prisoner's mother. She looked at her 
 son as she lifted her veil to take the oath. He burst into 
 tears. At that moment the sympathy felt for the mother 
 was generally extended to the unhappy son. 
 
 Examined by the Dean of Faculty, Mrs. Macallan the eld- 
 er gave her answers with remarkable dignity and self-con- 
 trol. 
 
 Questioned as to certain private conversations which had 
 passed between her late daughter-in-law and herself, she de- 
 clared that Mrs. Eustace Macallan was morbidly sensitive
 
 SHE LOOKED AT HER SON AS SHE LIFTED IIEll VEIL TO TAKE THE OATH.
 
 THE LAW AND TI1E LADY. 140 
 
 on the subject of her personal appearance. She was devot- 
 edly attached to her husband; the great anxiety of her life 
 was to make herself as attractive to him as possible. The 
 imperfections in her personal appearance and especially in 
 her complexion were subjects to her of the bitterest regret. 
 The witness had heard her say, over and over again (refer- 
 ring to her complexion), that there was no risk she would not 
 run, and no pain she would not suffer, to improve it. "Men" 
 (she had said) " are all caught by outward appearances : my 
 husband might love me better if I had a better color." 
 
 Being asked next if the passages from her son's Diary 
 were to be depended on as evidence that is to say, if they 
 fairly represented the peculiarities in his character, and his 
 true sentiments toward his wife 31rs. 3Iacallau denied it in 
 the plainest and strongest terms. 
 
 "The extracts from my son's Diary are a libel on his 
 character," she said. " And not the less a libel because they 
 happen to be written by himself. Speaking from a mother's 
 experience of him, I know that he must have written the 
 passages produced in moments of uncontrollable depression 
 and despair. No just person judges hastily of a man by the 
 rash words which may escape him in his moody and miser- 
 able moments. Is my son to be so judged because he hap- 
 pens to have written his rash words, instead of speaking 
 them? His pen has been his most deadly enemy, in this 
 case it has presented him at his very worst. He was not 
 happy in his marriage I admit that. But I say at the same 
 time that he was invariably considerate toward his wife. I 
 was implicitly trusted by both of them; I saw them in their 
 most private moments. I declare in the face of what she 
 appears to have written to her friends and correspondents 
 that my son never gave his wife any just cause to assert 
 that he treated her with cruelty or neglect." 
 
 The words, firmly and clearly spoken, produced a strong 
 impression. The Lord Advocate evidently perceiving that 
 any attempt to weaken that impression would not be likely 
 to succeed confined himself, in cross-examination, to two 
 significant questions. 
 
 "In speaking to you of the defects in her complexion," he 
 said, " did your daughter-in-law refer in any way to the use 
 of arsenic as a remedy ?" 
 
 The answer to this was, " No." 
 02
 
 150 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 The Lord Advocate proceeded : 
 
 " Did you yourself ever recommend arsenic, or mention it 
 casually, in the course of the private conversations which 
 you have described ?" 
 
 The answer to this was, "Never." 
 
 The Lord Advocate resumed his seat. Mrs. Macallan the 
 elder withdrew. 
 
 An interest of a new kind was excited by the appearance 
 of the next witness. This was no less a person than Mrs. 
 Beauly herself. The Report describes her as a remarkably 
 attractive person ; modest and lady-like in her manner, and, 
 to all appearance, feeling sensitively the public position in 
 which she was placed. 
 
 The first portion of her evidence was almost a recapitula- 
 tion of the evidence given by the prisoner's mother with 
 this difference, that Mrs. Beauly had been actually ques- 
 tioned by the deceased lady on the subject of cosmetic ap- 
 plications to the complexion. Mrs. Eustace Macallan had 
 complimented her on the beauty of her complexion, and had 
 asked what artificial means she used to keep it in such good 
 order. Using no artificial means, and knowing nothing what- 
 ever of cosmetics, Mrs. Beauly had resented the question, and 
 a temporary coolness between the two ladies had been the 
 result. 
 
 Interrogated as to her relations with the prisoner, Mrs. 
 Beauly indignantly denied that she or Mr. Macallan had 
 ever given the deceased lady the slightest cause for jealousy. 
 It was impossible for Mrs. Beauly to leave Scotland, after 
 visiting at the houses of her cousin's neighbors, without also 
 visiting at her cousin's house. To take any other course 
 would have been an act of downright rudeness, and would 
 have excited remark. She did not deny that Mr. Macallan 
 had admired her in the days when they were both single 
 people. But there was no further expression of that feeling 
 when she had married another man, and when he had mar- 
 ried another woman. From that time their intercourse was 
 the innocent intercourse of a brother and sister. Mr. Mac^ 
 allan was a gentleman : he knew what was due to his wife 
 and to Mrs. Beauly she would not have entered the house 
 if experience had not satisfied her of that. As for the evi- 
 dence of the under-gardener, it was little better than pure 
 invention. The greater part of the conversation which he
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 151 
 
 had described himself as overhearing had never taken place. 
 The little that was really said (as the man reported it) was 
 said jestingly ; and she had checked it immediately as the 
 witness had himself confessed. For the rest, Mr. Macallan's 
 behavior toward his wife was invariably kind and consider- 
 ate. He was constantly devising means to alleviate her suf- 
 ferings from the rheumatic affection which confined her to 
 her bed ; he had spoken of her, not once but many times, 
 in terms of the sincerest sympathy. When she ordered her 
 husband and witness to leave the room, on the day of her 
 death, Mr. Macallan said to witness afterward, " We must 
 bear with her jealousy, poor soul: we know that we don't 
 deserve it." In that patient manner he submitted to her in- 
 firmities of temper from first to last. 
 
 The main interest in the cross-examination of Mrs. Beauly 
 centred in a question which was put at the end. After re- 
 minding her that she had given her name, on being sworn, 
 as "Helena Beauly." the Lord Advocate said: 
 
 "A letter addressed to the prisoner, and signed 'Helena,' 
 has been read in CouYt. Look at it, if you please. Are you 
 the writer of that letter ?" 
 
 Before the witness could reply the Dean of Faculty pro- 
 tested against the question. The Judges allowed the pro- 
 test, and refused to permit the question to be put. Mrs. 
 Beauly thereupon withdrew. She had betrayed a very per- 
 ceptible agitation on hearing the letter referred to, and on 
 having it placed in her hands. This exhibition of feeling 
 was variously interpreted among the audience. Upon the 
 whole, however, Mrs. Beauly's evidence was considered to 
 have aided the impression which the mother's evidence had 
 produced in the prisoner's favor. 
 
 The next witnesses both ladies, and both school friends 
 of Mrs. Eustace Macallan created a new feeling of interest 
 in Court. They supplied the missing link in the evidence 
 for the defense. 
 
 The first of the ladies declared that she had mentioned 
 arsenic as a means of improving the complexion in conver- 
 sation with Mrs. Eustace Macallan. She had never used it 
 herself, but she had read of the practice of eating arsenic 
 among the Styrian peasantry for the purpose of clearing the 
 color, and of producing a general appearance of plumpness 
 ami good health. She positively swore that she had related
 
 152 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 this result of her reading to the deceased lady exactly as 
 she now related it in Court. 
 
 The second witness, present at the conversation already 
 mentioned, corroborated the first witness in every particu- 
 lar; and added that she had procured the book relating to 
 the arsenic-eating practices of the Styrian peasantry, and 
 their results, at Mrs. Eustace Macallan's own request. This 
 book she had herself dispatched by post to Mrs. Eustace 
 Macallan at Gleninch. 
 
 There was but one assailable point in this otherwise con- 
 clusive evidence. The cross-examination discovered it. 
 
 Both the ladies were asked, in turn, if Mrs. Eustace Mac- 
 allan had expressed to them, directly or indirectly, any in- 
 tention of obtaining arsenic, with a view to the improvement 
 of her complexion. In each case the answer to that all-im- 
 portant question was, No. Mrs. Eustace Macallan had heard 
 of the remedy, and had received the book. But of her own 
 intentions in the future she had not said one word. She had 
 begged both the ladies to consider the conversation as strict- 
 ly private and there it had ended. 
 
 It required no lawyer's eye to discern the fatal defect 
 which was now revealed in the evidence for the defense. 
 Every intelligent person present could see that the prison- 
 er's chance of an honorable acquittal depended on tracing 
 the poison to the possession of his wife or at least on prov- 
 ing her expressed intention to obtain it. In either of these 
 cases the prisoner's Declaration of his innocence would claim 
 the support of testimony, which, however indirect it might 
 be, no honest and intelligent men would be likely to resist. 
 Was that testimony forthcoming ? Was the counsel for the 
 defense not at the end of his resources yet? 
 
 The crowded audience waited in breathless expectation 
 for the appearance of the next witness. A whisper went 
 round among certain well-instructed persons that the Court 
 was now to see and hear the prisoner's old friend already 
 often referred to in the course of the Trial as " Mr. Dexter." 
 
 After a brief interval of delay there was a sudden com- 
 motion among the audience, accompanied by suppressed ex- 
 clamations of curiosity and surprise. At the same moment 
 the crier summoned the new witness by the extraordinary 
 name of 
 
 " MISERRIMCS DEXTER."
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. I 1 > 153 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 THE END OF THE TRIAL. 
 
 THE calling of the new witness provoked a burst of laugh- 
 ter among the audience due partly, no doubt, to the strange 
 name by which he had been summoned ; partly, also, to the 
 instinctive desire of all crowded assemblies, when their in- 
 terest is painfully excited, to seize on any relief in the shape 
 of the first subject of merriment which may present itself. 
 A severe rebuke from the Bench restored order among the 
 audience. The Lord Justice Clerk declared that he would 
 " clear the Court " if the interruption to the proceedings 
 were renewed. 
 
 During the silence which followed this announcement the 
 new witness appeared. 
 
 PGliding, self-propelled in his chair on wheels, through the 
 opening made for him among the crowd, a strange and start- 
 ling creature literally the half of a man revealed himself 
 to the general view. A coverlet which had been thrown 
 over his chair had fallen off during his progress through the 
 throng. The loss of it exposed to the public curiosity the 
 head, the arms, and the trunk of a living human being: ab- 
 solutely deprived of the lower limbs. To make this deform- 
 ity aJHhejT^ejatriking and all the more terrible^the victim 
 of it was as~to~h~is face and his body-^arTunusually hand- 
 some and an unusually well-made man. His long silky hair, 
 of a bright and beautiful chestnut color, fell over shoulders 
 that were the perfection of strength and grace. His face 
 was bright with vivacity and intelligence. His large clear 
 blue eyes and his long delicate white hands were like the 
 eyes and hands of a beautiful woman. He would have 
 looked effeminate butlfor the manly proportions of his throat 
 and chest, aided in their effect by his flowing beard and long 
 mustache, of a lighter chestnut shade than the color of his 
 hair. Never had a magnificent head and body been more 
 hopelessly ill-bestowed than in this instance ! Never had 
 Nature committed a more careless or a more cruel mistake 
 than in the making of this mini !
 
 154 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 He was sworn, seated, of course, in his chair. Having 
 given his name, he bowed to the Judges, and requested their 
 permission to preface his evidence with a word of explana- 
 tion. 
 
 "People generally laugh when they first hear my strange 
 Christian name," he said, in a low, clear, resonant voice which 
 penetrated to the remotest corners of the Court. "I may 
 inform the good people here that many names, still commop 
 among us, have their significations, and that mine is one of 
 them. ' Alexander,' for instance, means, in the Greek, ' a 
 helper of men.' ' David ' means, in Hebrew, ' well-beloved.' 
 ' Francis ' means, in German, ' free.' My name, ' Miserrimus,' 
 means, in Latin, ' most unhappy.' It was given to me by my 
 father, in allusion to the deformity which you all see the 
 deformity with which it was my misfortune to be born. You 
 won't laugh at ' Miserrimus ' again, will you ?" He turned to 
 the Dean of Faculty, waiting to examine him for the defense. 
 " Mr. Dean, I am at your service. I apologize for delaying, 
 even for a moment, the proceedings of the Court." 
 
 He delivered his little address with perfect grace and good- 
 humor. Examined by the Dean, he gave his evidence clear- 
 ly, without the slightest appearance of hesitation or reserve. 
 
 " I was staying at Gleninch as a guest in the house at the 
 time of Mrs. Eustace Macallan's death," he began. " Doctor 
 Jerome and Mr. Gale desired to see me at a private interview 
 the prisoner being then in a state of prostration which 
 made it impossible for him to attend to his duties as master 
 of the house. At this interview the two doctors astonished 
 and horrified me by declaring that Mrs. Eustace Macallan 
 had died poisoned. They left it to me to communicate the 
 dreadful news to her husband, and they warned me that a 
 post-mortem examination muft be held on the body. 
 
 "If the Fiscal had seen my old friend when I communicat- 
 ed the doctors' message, I doubt if he would have ventured 
 to charge the prisoner with the murder of his wife. To my 
 mind the charge was nothing less than an outrage. I resist- 
 ed the seizure of the prisoner's Diary and letters, animated 
 by that feeling. Now that the Diary has been pi'oduced, I 
 agree with the prisoner's mother in denying that it is fair 
 evidence to bring against him. A Diary (when it extends 
 beyond a bare record of facts and dates) is nothing but an 
 expression of the poorest and weakest side in the character
 
 THE LAW AND TIIK LADY. 155 
 
 of the person who keeps it. It is, in nine cases out of ten, the 
 more or less contemptible outpouring of vanity and conceit 
 which the writer dare not exhibit to any mortal but himself. 
 I am the prisoner's oldest friend. I solemnly declare that I 
 never knew he could write downright nonsense until I heard 
 his Diary read in this Court ! 
 
 "He kill his wife ! He treat his wife with neglect and 
 cruelty ! I venture to say, from twenty years' experience 
 of him, that there is no man in this assembly who is consti- 
 tutionally more incapable of crime and more incapable of 
 cruelty than the man who stands at the Bar. While I am 
 about it, I go farther still. I even doubt whether a man ca- 
 pable of crime and capable of cruelty could have found it in 
 his heart to do evil to the woman whose untimely death is 
 the subject of this inquiry. 
 
 "I have heard what the ignorant and prejudiced nurse, 
 Christina Ormsay, has said of the deceased lady. From my 
 own personal observation, I contradict every word of it. 
 Mrs. Eustace Macallan granting her personal defects was 
 nevertheless one of the most charming women I ever met 
 with. She was highly bred, in the best sense of the word. 
 I never saw in any other person so sweet a smile as hers, or 
 such grace and beauty of movement as hers. If you liked 
 music, she sang beautifully ; and few professed musicians had 
 such a touch on the piano as hers. If you preferred talking, 
 I never yet met with the man (or even the woman, which is 
 saying a great deal more) whom her conversation could not 
 charm. To say that such a wife as this could be first cruelly 
 neglepted, and then barbarously murdered, by the man no ! 
 by the martyr who stands there, is to tell me that the sun 
 never shines at noonday, or that the heaven is not above the 
 earth. 
 
 " Oh yes ! I know that the letters of her friends show that 
 she wrote to them in bitter complaint of her husband's con- 
 duct to her. But remember what one of those friends (the 
 wisest and the best of them) says in reply. ' I own to think- 
 ing,' she writes, ' that your sensitive nature exaggerates or 
 misinterprets the neglect that you experience at the hands 
 of your husband.' There, in that one sentence, is the whole 
 truth ! Mrs. Eustace Macallan's nature was the imaginative, 
 self-tormenting nature of a poet. No mortal love could ever 
 have been refined enough for her. Trifles which women of a
 
 156 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 coarser moral fibre would have passed over without notice, 
 were causes of downright agony to that exquisitely sensitive 
 temperament. There are persons born to be unhappy. That 
 poor lady was one of them. When I have said this, I have 
 said all. 
 
 " No ! There is one word more still to be added. 
 
 " It may be as well to remind the prosecution that Mrs. 
 Eustace Macallan's death was in the pecuniary sense a seri- 
 ous loss to her husband. He had insisted on having the whole 
 of her fortune settled on herself, and on her relatives after 
 her, when he married. Her income from that fortune helped 
 to keep in splendor the house and grounds at Gleninch. The 
 prisoner's own resources (aided even by his mother's joint- 
 ure) were quite inadequate fitly to defray the expenses of 
 living at his splendid country-seat. Knowing all the cir- 
 cumstances, I can positively assert that the wife's death has 
 depi'ived the husband of two thirds of his income. And the 
 prosecution, viewing him as the basest and crudest of men, 
 declares that he deliberately killed her with all his pecuni- 
 ary interests pointing to the preservation of her life ! 
 
 "It is useless to ask me whether I noticed any thing in 
 the conduct of the prisoner and Mrs. Beauly which might 
 justify a wife's jealousy. I never observed Mrs. Beauly with 
 any attention, and I never encouraged the prisoner in talk- 
 ing to me about her. He was a general admirer of pretty 
 women so far as I know, in a perfectly innocent way. That 
 he could prefer Mrs. Beauly to his wife is inconceivable to 
 me, unless he were out of his senses. I never had any reason 
 to believe that he was out of his senses. 
 
 " As to the question of the arsenic I mean the question 
 of tracing that poison to the possession of Mrs. Eustace Mac- 
 allan I am able to give evidence which may, perhaps, be 
 worthy of the attention of the Court. 
 
 " I was present in the FiscaPs office during the examination 
 of the papers, and of the other objects discovered at Glen- 
 inch. The dressing-case belonging to the deceased lady was 
 shown to me after its contents had been officially investigat- 
 ed by the Fiscal himself. I happen to have a very sensitive 
 sense of touch. In handling the lid of the dressing-case, on 
 the inner side I felt something at a certain place which in- 
 duced me to examine the whole structure of the lid very 
 carefully. The result was the discovery of a private reposi-
 
 THE LAW AM) TI1K LADY. 157 
 
 tory concealed in the space between the outer wood and the 
 lining. In that repository I found the bottle which I now 
 produce." 
 
 The further examination of the witness was suspended 
 while the hidden bottle was compared with the bottles prop- 
 erly belonging to the dressing-case. 
 
 These last were of the finest cut glass, and of a very ele- 
 gant form entirely unlike the bottle found in the private 
 repository, which was of the commonest manufacture, and of 
 the shape ordinarily in use among chemists. Not a drop of 
 liquid, not the smallest atom of any solid substance, remained 
 in it. No smell exhaled from it and, more unfortunately 
 still for the interests of the defense, no label was found at- 
 tached to the bottle when it had been discovered. 
 
 The chemist who had sold the second supply of arsenic to 
 the prisoner was recalled and examined. He declared that 
 the bottle was exactly like the bottle in which he had placed 
 the arsenic. It was, however, equally like hundreds of other 
 bottles in his shop. In the absence of the label (on which he 
 had himself written the word "Poison"), it was impossible 
 for him to identify the bottle. The dressing-case and the 
 deceased lady's bedroom had been vainly searched for the 
 chemist's missing label on the chance that it might have 
 become accidentally detached from the mysterious empty 
 bottle. In both instances the search had been without re- 
 sult. Morally, it was a fair conclusion that this might be 
 really the bottle which had contained the poison. Legally, 
 there was not the slightest proof of it. 
 
 Thus ended the last effort of the defense to trace the ar- 
 senic purchased by the prisoner to the possession of his wife. 
 The book relating the practices of the Stvrian peasantry 
 (found in the deceased lady's room) had been produced. But 
 could the book prove that she had asked her husband to buy 
 arsenic for her? The crumpled paper, with the grains of 
 powder left in it, had been identified by the chemist, and had 
 .been declared to contain grains of arsenic. But where was 
 the proof that Mrs. Eustace Macallan's hand had placed' the 
 packet in the cabinet, and had emptied it of its contents? 
 No direct evidence any where ! Nothing but conjecture ! 
 
 The renewed examination of Miserrimus Dexter tone-lied 
 on matters of no general interest. The cross-examination 
 resolved itself, in substance, into a mental trial of strength
 
 158 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 between the witness and the Lord Advocate; the struggle 
 terminating (according to the general opinion) in favor of the 
 witness. One question and one answer only I will repeat 
 here. They appeared to me to be of serious importance to 
 the object that I had in view in reading the Trial. 
 
 " I believe, Mr. Dexter," the Lord Advocate remarked, in 
 his most ironical manner, "that you have a theory of your 
 own, which makes the death of Mrs. Eustace Macallan no 
 mystery to you ? n 
 
 " I may have my own ideas on that subject, as on other 
 subjects," the witness replied. " But let me ask their lord- 
 ships, the Judges : Am I here to declare theories or to state 
 facts?" 
 
 I made a note of that answer. Mr. Dexter's " ideas " were 
 the ideas of a true friend to my husband, and of a man of far 
 more than average ability. They might be of inestimable 
 value to me in the coming time if I could prevail on him 
 to communicate them. 
 
 I may mention, while I am writing on the subject, that I 
 added to this first note a second, containing an observation 
 of my own. In alluding to Mrs. Beauly, while he was giving 
 his evidence, Mr. Dexter had spoken of her so slightingly 
 so rudely, I might almost say as to suggest he had some 
 strong private reasons for disliking (perhaps 1 for distrusting) 
 this lady. Here, again, it might be of vital importance to 
 me to see Mr. Dexter, and to clear up, if I could, what the 
 dignity of the Court had passed over without notice. 
 
 The last witness had been now examined. The chair on 
 wheels glided away with the half-man in it, and was lost in 
 a distant corner of the Court. The Lord Advocate rose to 
 address the Jury for the prosecution. 
 
 I do not scruple to say that I never read any thing so in- 
 famous as this great lawyer's speech. He was not ashamed 
 to declare, at starting, that he firmly believed the prisoner to 
 be guilty. What right had he to say any thing of the sort?. 
 Was it for him to decide ? Was he the Judge and Jury both, 
 I should like to know ? Having begun by condemning the 
 prisoner on his own authority, the Lord Advocate proceeded 
 to pervert the most innocent actions of that unhappy man so 
 as to give them as vile an aspect as possible. Thus : When 
 Eustace kissed his poor wife's forehead on her death-bed, he
 
 THE LAW ANL> THE LADY. 159 
 
 did it to create a favorable impression in the minds of the 
 doctor and the nurse ! Again, when his grief under his be- 
 reavement completely overwhelmed him, he was triumphing 
 in secret, and acting a part ! If you looked into his heart, 
 you would see there a diabolical hatred for his wife and an 
 infatuated passion for Mrs. Beauly ! In every thing he had 
 said he had lied ; in every thing he had done he had acted like 
 a crafty and heartless wretch ! So the chief counsel for the 
 prosecution spoke of the prisoner, standing helpless before 
 him at the Bar. In my husband's place, if I could have done 
 nothing more, I would have thrown something at his head. 
 As it was, I tore the pages which contained the speech for 
 the prosecution out of the Report, and trampled them under 
 my feet and felt all the better too for having done it. At 
 the same time I feel a little ashamed of having revenged my- 
 self on the harmless printed leaves now. 
 
 The fifth day of the Trial opened with the speech for the 
 defense. Ah, what a contrast to the infamies uttered by the 
 Lord Advocate was the grand burst of eloquence by the Dean 
 of Faculty, speaking on my husband's side ! 
 
 This illustrious lawyer struck the right note at starting. 
 
 " I yield to no one," he began, " in the pity I feel lor the 
 wife. But I say, the martyr in this case, from first to last, is 
 the husband. Whatever the poor woman may have endured, 
 that unhappy man at the Bar has suffered, and is now suffer- 
 ing, more. If he had not been the kindest of men, the most 
 docile and most devoted of husbands, he would never have 
 occupied his present dreadful situation. A man of a meaner 
 and harder nature would have felt suspicion of his wife's mo- 
 tives when she asked him to "buy poison would have seen 
 through the wretchedly commonplace excuses she made for 
 wanting it and would have wisely and cruelly said, 'Xo.' 
 The prisoner is not that sort of man. He is too good to his 
 wife, too innocent of any evil thought toward her, or toward 
 any one, to foresee the inconveniences and the dangers to 
 which his fatal compliance may expose him. And what is 
 the result ? He stands there, branded as a murderer, because 
 lie was too high-minded and too honorable to suspect his 
 wife." 
 
 Speaking thus of the husband, the Dean was just as elo- 
 quent and just as unanswerable when he came to speak of 
 the wife.
 
 160 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 "The Lord Advocate," he said, "has asked, with the bit- 
 ter irony for which he is celebrated at the Scottish Bar, why 
 we have failed entirely to prove that the prisoner placed the 
 two packets of poison in the possession of his wife. I say, in 
 answer, we have proved, first, that the wife was passionately 
 attached to the husband ; secondly, that she felt bitterly the 
 defects in her personal appearance, and especially the defects 
 in her complexion ; and, thirdly, that she was informed of ar- 
 senic as a supposed remedy for those defects, taken internally. 
 To men who know any thing of human nature, there is proof 
 enough. Does my learned friend actually suppose that wom- 
 en are in the habit of mentioning the secret artifices and ap- 
 plications by which they improve their personal appearance? 
 Is it in his experience of the sex that a woman who is eager- 
 ly bent on making herself attractive to a man would tell that 
 man, or tell any body else who might communicate with him, 
 that the charm by which she hoped to win his heart say the 
 charm of a pretty complexion had been artificially acquired 
 by the perilous use of a deadly poison ? The bare idea of 
 such a thing is absurd. Of course nobody ever heard Mrs. 
 Eustace Macallan speak of arsenic. Of course nobody ever 
 surprised her in the act of taking arsenic. It is in the evi- 
 dence that she would not even confide her intention to try 
 the poison to the friends who had told her of it as a remedy, 
 and who had got her the book. She actually begged them 
 to consider their brief conversation on the subject as strictly 
 private. From first to last, poor creature, she kept her se- 
 cret; just as she would have kept her secret if she had worn 
 false hair, or if she had been indebted to the dentist for her 
 teeth. And there you see her husband, in peril of his life, 
 because a woman acted like a woman as your wives, gen- 
 tlemen of the Jury, would, in a similar position, act toward 
 You." 
 
 After such glorious oi-atory as this (I wish I had room to 
 quote more of it !), the next, and last, speech delivered at the 
 Trial that is to say, the Chai'ge of the Judge to the Jury 
 is dreary reading indeed. 
 
 His lordship first told the Jury that they could not expect 
 to have direct evidence of the poisoning. Such evidence 
 hardly ever occurred in cases of poisoning. They must be 
 satisfied with the best circumstantial evidence. All quite 
 tVue, I dare say. But, having told the Jury they might ac-
 
 THE LAW AND TIIL LADY. 161 
 
 cept circumstantial evidence, he turned back again on his 
 own words, and warned them against being too ready to 
 trust it ! "You must have evidence satisfactory and con- 
 vincing to your own minds," he said, "in which you find no 
 conjectures but only irresistible and just inferences." Who 
 is to decide what is a just inference? And what is circum- 
 stantial evidence but conjecture ? 
 
 After this specimen, I need give no further extracts from 
 the summing up. The Jury, thoroughly bewildered no doubt, 
 took refuge in a compromise. They occupied an hour in con- 
 sidering and debating among themselves in their own room. 
 (A jury of women wouM not have taken a minute!) Then 
 they returned into Court, and gave their timid and trimming 
 Scotch Verdict in these words : 
 
 " Not Proven." 
 
 Some slight applause followed among the audience, which 
 was instantly checked. The prisoner was dismissed from 
 the Bar. He slowly retired, like a man in deep grief; his 
 head sunk on his breast not looking at any one, and not re- 
 plying when his friends spoke to him. He knew, poor fellow, 
 the slur that the Verdict left on him. " We don't say you 
 are innocent of the crime charged against you ; we only say 
 there is not evidence enough to convict you.'\ In that lame 
 and impotent conclusion the proceedings ended at the time. 
 And there they would have remained for all time but for 
 Me. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 I SEE MY WAY. 
 
 I.v the gray light of the new morning I closed the Report 
 of my husband's Trial for the Murder of his first Wife. 
 
 NQ sense of fatigue overpowered me. I had no wish, after 
 my long hours of reading and thinking, to lie down and sleep. 
 It was strange, but it was so. I felt as if I had slept, and 
 had now just awakened a new woman, with a new mind. 
 
 I could now at last understand Eustace's desertion of me. 
 To a man of his refinement it would have been a martyrdom 
 to meet his wife after she had read the things published of 
 him to all the world in the Report. I felt that as he would 
 have felt it. At the same time I thought he might have
 
 162 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 trusted Me to make amends to him for the martyrdom, and 
 might have come back. Perhaps it might yet end in his 
 coming back. In the mean while, and in that expectation, 
 I pitied and forgave him with my whole heart. 
 
 One little matter only dwelt ou my mind disagreeably, in 
 spite of my philosophy. Did Eustace still secretly love Mrs. 
 Beauly? or had I extinguished that passion in him? To 
 what order of beauty did this lady belong? Were we, by 
 any chance, the least in the world like one another ? 
 
 The window of my room looked to the east. I drew up 
 the blind, and saw the sun rising grandly in a clear sky. 
 The temptation to go out and breathe the fresh morning air 
 was irresistible. I put on my hat and shawl, and took the 
 Report of the Trial under my arm. The bolts of the back 
 door were easily drawn. In another minute I was out in 
 Benjamin's pretty little garden. 
 
 Composed and strengthened by the inviting solitude and 
 the delicious air, I found courage enough to face the serious 
 question that now confronted me the question of the 
 future. 
 
 I had read the Trial. I had vowed to devote my life to 
 the sacred object of vindicating my husband's innocence. 
 A solitary, defenseless woman, I stood pledged to myself to 
 carry that desperate resolution through to an end. How 
 was I to begin ? 
 
 The bold way of beginning was surely the wise way in 
 such a position as mine. I had good reasons (founded, as I 
 have already mentioned, on the important part played by 
 this witness at the Trial) for believing that the fittest person 
 to advise and assist me was Miserrimus Dexter. He might 
 disappoint the expectations that I had fixed on him, or he 
 might refuse to help me, or (like my uncle Starkweather) he 
 might think I had taken leave of my senses. All these events 
 were possible. Nevertheless, I held to my resolution to try 
 the experiment. If he were in the land of the living, I decided 
 that my first step at starting should take me to the deformed 
 man with the strange name. 
 
 Supposing he received me, sympathized with me, under- 
 stood me? What would he say? The nurse, in her evi- 
 dence, had reported him as speaking in an off-hand manner. 
 He would say, in all probability, " What do you mean to do ? 
 And how can I help you to do it ?"
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 163 
 
 Had I answers ready if those two plain questions were put 
 to me? Yes! if I dared own to any human creature what 
 was at that very moment secretly fermenting in my mind. 
 Yes ! if I could confide to a stranger a suspicion roused in 
 me by the Trial which I have been thus far afraid to mention 
 even in these pages ! 
 
 It must, nevertheless, be mentioned now. My suspicion 
 led to results which are part of my story and part of my 
 life. 
 
 Let me own, then, to begin with, that I closed the record 
 of the Trial actually agreeing in one important particular 
 with the opinion of my enemy and my husband's enemy 
 the Lord Advocate ! He had characterized the explanation 
 of Mrs. Eustace Macallan's death offered by the defense as a 
 " clumsy subterfuge, in which no reasonable being could dis- 
 cern the smallest fragment of probability." Without going 
 quite so far as this, I, too, could see no reason whatever in 
 the evidence for assuming that the poor woman had taken 
 an overdose of the poison by mistake. I believed that she 
 had the arsenic secretly in her possession, and that she had 
 tried, or intended to try, the use of it internally^ for the pur- 
 pose of improving her complexion. But farther than this I 
 could not advance. The more I thought of it, the more plain- 
 ly justified the lawyers for the prosecution seemed to me to 
 be in declaring that Mrs. Eustace Macallan had died by the. 
 hand of a poisoner although they were entirely and cer- 
 tainly mistaken in charging my husband with the crime. 
 
 My husband being innocent, somebody else, on my own 
 showing, must be guilty. Who among the persons inhabiting 
 the house at the time had poisoned Mrs. Eustace Macallan ? 
 My suspicion in answering that question pointed straight 
 to a woman. And the name of that woman was Mrs. 
 Beauly ! 
 
 Yes ! To that startling conclusion I had arrived. It was, 
 to my mind, the inevitable result of reading the evidence. 
 
 Look back for a moment to the letter produced in court, 
 signed "Helena," and addressed to Mr. Macallan. No rea- 
 sonable person can doubt (though the Judges excused her 
 from answering the question) that Mrs. Beauly was the writer. 
 Very well. The letter offers, as I think, trustworthy evidence 
 to show the state of the woman's mind when she paid her 
 visit to Gleninch.
 
 164 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 Writing to Mr. Macallan, at a time when she was married 
 to another man a man to whom she had engaged herself 
 before she met with Mr. Macallan what does she say ? She 
 says, " When I think of your life sacrificed to that wretched 
 woman, my heart bleeds for you.'" And, again, she says, " If 
 it had been my unutterable happiness to love and cherish 
 the best, the dearest of men, what a paradise of our own we 
 might have lived in, what delicious hours we might have 
 known !" 
 
 If this is not the language of a woman shamelessly and 
 furiously in love with a man not her husband what is? 
 She is so full of him that even her idea of another world (see 
 the letter) is the idea of" embracing " Mr. Macallan's " soul." 
 In this condition of mind and morals, the lady one day finds 
 herself and her embraces free, through the death of her hus- 
 band. As soon as she can decently visit she goes visiting ; 
 and in due course of time she becomes the guest of the man 
 \\homsheadores. His wife is ill in her bed. The one other 
 visitor at Gleninch is a cripple, who can only move in his 
 chair on wheels. The lady has the house and the one beloved 
 object in it all to herself. No obstacle stands between her 
 and "the unutterable happiness of loving and cherishing 
 the best, the dearest of men" but a poor, sick, ugly wife, for 
 whom Mr. Macallan never has felt, and never can feel, the 
 smallest particle of love. 
 
 Is it perfectly absurd to believe that such a woman as 
 this, impelled by these motives, and surrounded by these 
 circumstances, would be capable of committing a crime if 
 the safe opportunity offered itself? 
 
 What does her own evidence say? 
 
 She admits that she had a convei'sation with Mrs. Eustace 
 Macallan, in which that lady " questioned her on the subject 
 of cosmetic applications to the complexion." Did nothing 
 else take place at that interview ? Did Mrs. Beanly make no 
 discoveries (afterward turned to fatal account) of the danger- 
 ous experiment which her hostess was then trying to improve 
 her ugly complexion ? All we know is that Mrs. Beauly said 
 nothing about it. 
 
 What does the under-gardener say ? 
 
 He heard a conversation between Mr. Macallan and Mrs. 
 
 Beauly, which shows that the possibility of Mrs. Beauly be- 
 
 * coming Mrs. Eustace Macallan had certainly presented itself
 
 TI1K LAW AM) THE J.ADV. 165 
 
 to that lady's mind, and was certainly considered by her to 
 be too dangerous a topic of discourse to be pursued. Inno- 
 cent Mr. Macallan would have gone on talking. Mrs. Beauly 
 is discreet, and stops him. 
 
 And what does the nurse (Christina Orrasay) tell us? 
 
 Ort the day of Mrs. Eustace Macallan's death, the nurse is 
 dismissed from attendance, and is sent down -stairs. She 
 leaves the sick woman, recovered from her first attack of ill- 
 ness, and able to amuse herself with writing. The nurse re- 
 mains away for half an hour, and then gets uneasy at not 
 hearing the invalid's bell. She goes to the Morning-Room 
 to consult Mr. Macallan, and there she hears that Mrs. Beau- 
 ly is missing. Mr. Macallan doesn't know where she is, 
 and asks Mr. Dexter if he has seen her. Mr. Dexter had not 
 set eyes on her. At what time does the disappearance of 
 Mrs. Beauly take place ? At the very time when Chris- 
 tina Oyusay had left Mrs. Eustace Macallan alone in her 
 room ! 
 
 Meanwhile the bell rings at last rings violently. The 
 nurse goes back to the sick-room at five minutes to eleven, 
 or thereabouts, and finds that the bad symptoms of the 
 morning have returned in a gravely aggravated form. A 
 second dose of poison larger than the dose administered in 
 the early morning has been given during the absence of 
 the nurse, and (observe) during the disappearance also of 
 Mrs. Beauly. The nurse, looking out into the corridor for 
 help, encounters Mrs. Beauly herself, innocently on her way' 
 from her own room just up, we are to suppose, at eleven in 
 the morning ! to inquire after the sick woman. 
 
 A little later Mrs. Beauly accompanies Mr. Macallan to visit 
 the invalid. The dying woman casts a strange look at both 
 of them, and tells them to leave her. Mr. Macallan under- 
 stands this as the fretful outbreak of a person in pain, and 
 waits in the room to tell the nurse that the doctor is sent for. 
 What does Mrs. Beauly do? She runs out pani^stricken 
 the instant Mrs. Eustace Macallan looks at her. Even Mrs. 
 Beauly, it seems, has a conscience ! 
 
 Is there nothing to justify suspicion in such circumstances 
 as these circumstances sworn to, on the oaths, of the wit- 
 nesses ? 
 
 To me the conclusion is plain. Mrs. Beauly's hand gave 
 that wond dose of poison. Admit this; and the inference 
 TT
 
 10Q THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 follows that she also gave the first dose in the early morning. 
 How could she do it? Look again at the evidence. The 
 nurse admits that she was asleep from past two in the morn- 
 ing to six. She also speaks of a locked door of communica- 
 tion with the sick-room, the key of which had been removed, 
 nobody knew by whom. Some person must have stolen that 
 key. Why not Mrs. Beauly ? 
 
 One word more, and all that I had in my mind at that 
 time will be honestly revealed. 
 
 . Miserrimus Dexter, under cross-examination, had indirectly 
 admitted that he had ideas of his own on the subject of Mrs. 
 Eustace Macallan's death. At the same time he had spoken 
 of Mrs. Beauly in a tone which plainly betrayed that he was 
 no friend to that lady. Did he suspect her too? My chief 
 motive in deciding to ask his advice before I applied to any 
 one else was to find an opportunity of putting that question 
 to him. If he really thought of her as I did, my course was 
 clear before me. The next step to take would be carefully 
 to conceal my identity and then to present myself, in the 
 character of a harmless stranger, to Mrs. Beauly. 
 
 There were difficulties, of course, in my way. The first 
 and greatest difficulty was to obtain an introduction to 
 Miserrimus Dexter. 
 
 The composing influence of the fresh air in the garden had 
 by this time made me readier to lie down and rest than to 
 occupy my mind in reflecting on my difficulties. Little by 
 little I grew too drowsy to think then too lazy to go on 
 walking. My bed looked wonderfully inviting as I passed 
 by the open window of my room. 
 
 In five minutes more I had accepted the imitation of the 
 bed, and had said farewell to my anxieties and my troubles. 
 In five minutes more I was fast asleep. 
 
 A discreetly gentle knock at my door was the first sound 
 that aroused me. I heard the voice of my good old Benja- 
 min speajj|ng outside. 
 
 " My dear ! I am afraid you will be starved if I let you 
 sleep any longer. It is half-past one o'clock; and a friend 
 of yours has come to lunch with us." 
 
 A friend of mine? What friends had I? My husband 
 was far away; and my uncle Starkweather had given me 
 up in despair. 
 
 "Who is it?" I cried out from my bed, through the door.
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 167 
 
 " Major Fitz-David," Benjamin answered, by the same me- 
 dium. 
 
 I sprang out of bed. The very man I wanted was waiting 
 to see me! Major Fitz-David, as the phrase is, knew every 
 body. Intimate with my husband, ho would certainly know 
 my husband's old friend Miserrimus Dexter. 
 
 Shall I confess that I took particular pains with my toilet, 
 and that I kept the luncheon waiting? The woman doesn't 
 live who would have done otherwise when she had a par- 
 ticular favor to ask of Major Fitz-David. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 THE MAJOR MAKES DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 As I opened the dining-room door the Major hastened to 
 meet me. He looked the brightest and the youngest of liv- 
 ing elderly gentlemen, with his smart blue frock-coat, his 
 winning smile, his ruby ring, and hisready compliment. 
 It was quite cheering to meet the modern Don Juan once 
 more. 
 
 "I don't ask after your health," said the old gentleman ; 
 " your eyes answer me, my dear lady, before I can put the 
 question. At your age a long sleep is the true beauty- 
 draught. Plenty of bed there is the simple secret of 
 keeping your good looks and living a long life plenty of 
 bed !" 
 
 " I have not been so long in my bed, Major, as you sup- 
 pose. To tell the truth, I have been up all night, reading." 
 
 Major Fitz-David lifted his well-painted eyebrows in po- 
 iite surprise. 
 
 " What is the happy book which has interested you so 
 deeply V" he asked. 
 
 "The book," I answered, "is the Trial of my husband for 
 the murder of his first wife." 
 
 "Don't mention that horrid book !" he exclaimed. "Don't 
 speak of that dreadful subject ! What have beauty and grace 
 to do with Trials, Poisonings, Horrors V Whv, my charming 
 friend, profane your lips by talking of such things? Why 
 frighten away the Loves and the Graces that lie hid in your 
 smile. Humor an old fellow who adores the Loves and the
 
 168 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 Graces, and who asks nothing better than to sun himself in 
 your smiles. Luncheon is ready. Let us be cheerful. Let 
 us laugh and lunch." 
 
 He led me to the table, and filled my plate and my glass 
 with the air of a man who considered himself to be engaged 
 in one of the most important occupations of his life. Benja- 
 min kept the conversation going in the interval. 
 
 "Major Fitz-David brings you some news, my dear," he 
 said. "Your mother-in-law, Mrs. Macallan, is coining here 
 to see you to-day." 
 
 My mother-in-law coming to see me ! I turned eagerly to 
 the Major for further information. 
 
 " Has Mrs. Macallan heard any thing of my husband ?" I 
 asked. "Is she coming here to tell me about him ?" 
 
 "She has heard from him, I believe," said the Major, "and 
 she has also heard from your uncle the vicar. Our excellent 
 Starkweather has written to her to what purpose I have 
 not been informed. I only know that on receipt of his let- 
 ter she has decided on paying you a visit. I met the old 
 lady last night ata party, and I tried hard to discover 
 whether she were coming to you as your friend or your en- 
 emy. My powers of persuasion were completely thrown 
 away on her. The fact is," said the Major, speaking in the 
 character of a youth of five-and-twenty making a modest 
 confession, " I don't get on well with old women. Take the 
 will for the deed, my sweet friend. I have tried to be of 
 some use to you and have failed." 
 
 Those words offered me the opportunity for which I was 
 waiting. I determined not to lose it. 
 
 " You can be of the greatest use to me," I said, " if you 
 will allow me to presume, Major, on your past kindness. I 
 want to ask you a question ; and I may have a favor t$ beg 
 when you have answered me." 
 
 Major Fitz-David set down his wine-glass on its way to 
 his lips, and looked at me with an appearance of breathless 
 interest. 
 
 "Command me, my dear lady I am yours and yours 
 only," said the gallant old gentleman. " What do you wish 
 to ask me ?" 
 
 " I wish to ask if you know Miserrimus Dexter." 
 
 "Good Heavens!" cried the Major; "that is an unex- 
 pected question ! Know Miserrimus Dexter ? I have known
 
 Till: LAW AM) THE LAI>Y. 1G9 
 
 him for more years than I like to reckon up. What can be 
 your object " 
 
 " I can tell you what my object is in two words," I inter- 
 posed. " I want you to give me an introduction to Miserri- 
 mus Dexter." 
 
 My impression is that the Major turned pale under his 
 paint. This, at any rate, is certain his sparkling little gray 
 eyes looked at me in undisguised bewilderment and alarm. 
 
 "You want to know Miserrimus Dexter?" he repeated, 
 with the air of a man who doubted the evidence of his own 
 senses. "Mr. Benjamin, have I taken too much of your ex- 
 cellent wine? Am I the victim of a delusion or did our 
 fair friend really ask me to give her an introduction to 
 Miserrimus Dexter?" 
 
 Benjamin looked at me in some bewilderment on his side, 
 and answered, quite seriously, 
 
 " I think you said so, my dear." 
 
 " I certainly said so," I rejoined. " What is there so very 
 sin-prising in my request?" 
 
 "The man is mad!" cried the Major. "In all England 
 you could not have picked out a person more essentially un- 
 fit to be introduced to a lady to a young lady especially 
 than Dexter. Have you heard of his horrible deformity ?" 
 
 " I have heard of it and it doesn't daunt me." 
 
 " Doesn't daunt you ? My dear lady, the man's mind is 
 as deformed as his body. What Voltaire said satirically of 
 the character of his countrymen in general is literally true 
 of Miserrimus Dexter. Pie is a mixture of the tiger and the 
 monkey. At one moment he would frighten you, and at the 
 next he would set you screaming with laughter. I don't 
 denj that he is clever in some respects brilliantly clever, I 
 admit. And I don't say that he has ever committed any 
 acts of violence, or ever willingly injured any body. But, for 
 all that, he is mad, if ever a man were mad yet. Forgive me 
 if the inquiry is impertinent. What can your motive possi- 
 bly be for wanting an introduction to Miserrimus Dexter?" 1 
 
 " I want to consult him?" 
 
 "May I ask on what subject?" 
 
 " On the subject of my husband's Trial." 
 
 Major Fitz-David groaned, and sought a momentary con- 
 solation in his friend Benjamin's claret. 
 
 " That dreadful subject again !" he exclaimed. " Mr. Ben-
 
 170 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 jamin, why does she persist in dwelling on that dreadful sub- 
 ject ?" 
 
 " I must dwell on what is now the one employment and 
 the one hope of my life," I said. "I have reason to hope 
 that Miserrimus Dexter can help me to clear my husband's 
 character of the stain which the Scotch Verdict has left on 
 it. Tiger and monkey as he may be, I am ready to run the 
 risk of being introduced to him. And I ask you again 
 rashly and obstinately as I fear you will think to give me 
 the introduction. It will put you to no inconvenience. I 
 won't trouble you to escort me ; a letter to Mr. Dexter will 
 do." 
 
 The Major looked piteously at Benjamin, and shook his 
 head. Benjamin looked piteously at the Major, and shook 
 his head. - 
 
 " She appears to insist on it," said the Major. 
 
 " Yes," said Benjamin. " She appears to insist on it." 
 
 "I won't take the responsibility, Mr. Benjamin, of sending 
 her alone to Miserrimus Dexter." 
 
 " Shall I go with her, sir ?" 
 
 The Major reflected. Benjamin, in the capacity of protec- 
 tor, did not appear to inspire our military friend with con- 
 fidence. After a moment's consideration a new idea seemed 
 to strike him. He turned to me. 
 
 "My charming friend," he said, " be more charming than 
 ever consent to a compromise. Let us treat this difficulty 
 about Dexter from a social point of view. What do you say 
 to a little dinner?" 
 
 " A little dinner ?" I repeated, not in the least undei'stand- 
 ing him. 
 
 " A little dinner," the Major reiterated, " at my house. 
 You insist on my introducing you to Dexter, and I refuse to 
 trust you alone with that crack-brained personage. The"only 
 alternative under the circumstances is to invite him to meet 
 you, and to let you form your own opinion of him under 
 the protection of my roof. Who shajl we have to meet you 
 besides?" pursued the Major, brightening with hospitable in- 
 tentions. " We want a perfect galaxy of beauty around the 
 table, as a species of compensation, when we have got Miser- 
 rimus Dexter as one of the guests. Madame Mirliflore is still 
 in London. You would be sure to like her she is charming; 
 she possesses your firmness, your extraordinary tenacity of
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 1V1 
 
 purpose. Yes, we will have Madame Mirliflore. Who else? 
 Shall we say Lady Clarinda? Another charming person, Mr. 
 Benjamin ! You would be sure to admire her she is so sym- 
 pathetic, she resembles in so many respects our fair friend 
 here. Yes, Lady Clarinda shall be one of us; and you shall 
 sit next to her, Mr. Benjamin, as a proof of my sincere regard 
 for you. Shall we have my young prima donna to sing to us 
 in the evening ? I think so. She is pretty ; she will assist 
 in obscuring the deformity of Dexter. Very well; there is 
 our party complete ! I will shut myself up this evening and 
 approach the question of dinner with my cook. Shall we say 
 this day week," asked the Major, taking out his pocket-book, 
 " at eight o'clock ?" 
 
 I consented to the proposed compromise but not very 
 willingly. With a letter of introduction, I might have seen 
 Miserrimus Dexter that afternoon. As it was, the " little din- 
 ner" compelled me to wait in absolute inaction through a 
 whole week. However, there was no help for it but to sub- 
 mit. Major Fitz-David, in his polite way, could be as obsti- 
 nate as I was. He had evidently made up his mind; and 
 further opposition on my part would be of no service to me. 
 
 "Punctually at eight, Mr. Benjamin," reiterated the Ma- 
 jor. " Put it down in your book." 
 
 Benjamin obeyed with a side look at me, which I was at 
 no loss to interpret. My good old friend did not relish meet- 
 ing a man at dinner who was described as " half tiger, half 
 monkey ;" and the privilege of sitting next to Lady Clarinda 
 rather daunted than delighted him. It was all my doing, and 
 he too had no choice but to submit. " Punctually at eight, 
 sir," said poor old Benjamin, obediently recording his for- 
 midable engagement. "Please to take another glass of wine." 
 
 The Major looked at his watch, and rose with fluent apol- 
 ogies for abruptly leaving the table. 
 
 "-It is later than I thought," he said. " I have an appoint- 
 ment with a friend a female friend; a most attractive per- 
 son. You a little remind me of her, my dear lady you 
 resemble her in complexion : the same creamy paleness. I 
 adore creamy paleness. As I was saying, I have an appoint- 
 ment with my friend ; she does me the honor to ask my opin- 
 ion on some very remarkable specimens of old lace. I have 
 studied old lace. I study every thing that can make me use- 
 ful or agreeable to your enchanting sex. Yon won't forget
 
 172 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 our little dinner? I will send Dexter his invitation the mo- 
 ment I get home." He took my hand and looked at it crit- 
 ically, with his head a little on one side. " A delicious hand," 
 he said ; "you don't mind my looking at it you don't mind 
 my kissing it, do you? A delicious hand is one of my weak- 
 nesses. Forgive my weaknesses. I promise to repent and 
 amend one of these days." 
 
 " At your age, Major, do you think you have much time to 
 lose ?" asked a strange voice, speaking behind us. 
 
 We all three looked around toward the door. There stood 
 my husband's mother, smiling satirically, with Benjamin's 
 shy little maid-servant waiting to announce her. 
 
 Major Fitz-David was ready with his answer. The old 
 soldier was not easily taken by surprise. 
 
 " Age, my dear Mrs. Macallan, is a purely relative expres- 
 sion," he said. " There are some people who are never young, 
 and there are other people who are never old. I am one of 
 the other people. A.U revoirf" 
 
 With that answer the incorrigible Major kissed the tips 
 of his fingers to us and walked out. Benjamin, bowing with 
 his old-fashioned courtesy, threw open the door of his little 
 library, and, inviting Mrs. Macallan and myself to pass in, 
 left us together in the room. 
 
 CHAPTER -XXIII. 
 
 MY MOTHER-IN-LAW SURPRISES ME. 
 
 I TOOK a chair at a respectful distance from the sofa on 
 which Mrs. Macallan seated herself. The old lady smiled, 
 and beckoned to me to take my place by her side. Judging 
 by appearances, she had certainly not come to see me in the 
 character of an enemy. It remained to be discovered wheth- 
 er she were really disposed to be my friend. 
 
 "I have received a letter from your uncle the vicar," she be- 
 gan. " He asks me to visit you, and I am happy for reasons 
 which you shall presently hear to comply with his request. 
 Under other circumstances I doubt very much, my dear child 
 strange as the confession may appear whether I should 
 have ventured into your presence. My son has behaved to 
 you so weakly, and (in my opinion) so inexcusably, that I
 
 THE LAW AM) THK LADY. 173 
 
 am really, speaking as his mother, almost ashamed to face 
 you." 
 
 Was she in earnest ? I listened to her and looked at her 
 in amazement. 
 
 " Your uncle's letter," pursued Mrs. Macallan, " tells me 
 how you have behaved under your hard trial, and what you 
 propose to do now Eustace has left you. Doctor Starkweath- 
 er, poor man, seems to be inexpressibly shocked by what you 
 said to him when he was in London. He begs me to use my 
 influence to induce you to abandon your present ideas, and 
 to make you return to your old home at the Vicarage. I 
 don't in the least agree with your uncle, my dear. Wild as 
 I believe your plans to be you have not the slightest chance 
 of succeeding in carrying them out I admire your courage, 
 your fidelity, your unshaken faith in my unhappy son, after 
 his unpardonable behavior to you. You are a fine creature, 
 Valeria, and I have come here to tell you so in plain words. 
 Give me a kiss, child. You deserve to be the wife of a hero, 
 and you have married one of the weakest of living mortals. 
 God forgive me for speaking so of my own son ; but it's in 
 my mind, and it must come out !" 
 
 This way of speaking of Eustace, was more than I could 
 suffer, even from his mother. I recovered the use of my 
 tongue in my husband's defense. 
 
 " I am sincerely proud of your good opinion, dear Mrs. 
 Macallan," I said. "But you distress me forgive me if I 
 own it plainly when I hear you speak so disparagingly of 
 Eustace. I can not agree with you that my husband is the 
 weakest of living mortals." 
 
 " Of course not !" retorted the old lady. " You are like 
 all good women you make a hero of the man you love, 
 whether he deserve it or not. Your husband has hosts of 
 good qualities, child and perhaps I know them better than 
 you do. But his whole conduct, from the moment when he 
 first entered your uncle's house to the present time, has been, 
 I say again, the conduct of an essentially weak man. What 
 do you think he has done now by way of climax ? He has 
 joined a charitable brotherhood; and he is off to the war in 
 Spain with a red cross on his arm, when he ought to be here 
 on his knees, asking his wife to forgive him. I say that is 
 the conduct of a weak man. Some people might call it by a 
 harder name."
 
 174 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 This news startled and distressed me. I might be resigned 
 to his leaving me for a time ; but all my instincts as a wom- 
 an revolted at his placing himself in a position of danger dur- 
 ing his separation from his wife. He had now deliberately 
 added to my anxieties. I thought it cruel of him but I 
 would not confess what I thought to his mother. I affected 
 to be as cool as she was ; and I disputed her conclusions 
 with all the firmness that I could summon to help me. The 
 terrible old woman only went on abusing him more vehe- 
 mently than ever. 
 
 "What. I complain of in my son," proceeded Mrs. Macal- 
 lan, "is that he has entirely failed to understand you. If he 
 had married a fool, his conduct would be intelligible enough. 
 He would have done wisely to conceal from a fool that he 
 had been married already, and that he had suffered the hor- 
 rid public exposure of a Trial for the murder of his wife. 
 Then, again, he would have been quite right, when this same 
 fool had discovered the truth, to take himself out of her way 
 before she could suspect him of poisoning her for the sake 
 of the peace and quiet of both parties. But you are not a 
 fool. I can see that, after only a short experience of you. 
 Why can't he see it too? Why didn't he trust you with his 
 secret from the first, instead of stealing his way into your 
 affections under an assumed name? Why did he plan (as 
 he confessed to me) to take you away to the Mediterranean, 
 and to keep you abroad, for fear of some officious friends at 
 home betraying him to you as the prisoner of the famous 
 Trial ? What is the plain answer to all these questions ? 
 What is the one possible explanation of this otherwise un- 
 accountable conduct?' There is only one answer, and one 
 explanation. My poor, wretched son he takes after his 
 father; he isn't the least like me! is weak: weak in his 
 way of judging, weak in his way of acting, and, like all weak 
 people, headstrong and unreasonable to the la'st degree. 
 There is the truth ! Don't get red and angry. I am as fond 
 of him as you are. I can see his merits too. And one of 
 them is that he has married a woman of spirit and resolu- 
 tion so faithful and so fond of him that she won't even let 
 his own mother tell her of his faults. Good child ! I like 
 you for hating me !" 
 
 " Dear madam, don't say that I hate you !" I exclaimed 
 (feeling very much as if I did hate her, though, for all that).
 
 THE LAW AND THE I.ADY. 175 
 
 " I only presume to think that you are confusing a delicate- 
 rainded man with a weak-minded man. Our dear unhappy 
 Kustace " 
 
 " Is a delicate-minded man," said the impenetrable Mrs. 
 Macallan, finishing my sentence for me. " We will leave it 
 there, my dear, and get on to another subject. I wonder 
 whether we shall disagree about that too ?" 
 
 " What is the subject, madam ?" 
 
 " I won't tell you if you call me madam. Call me mother. 
 Say, ' What is the subject, mother ?" 
 
 " What is the subject, mother ?" 
 
 " Your notion of turning yourself into a Court of Appeal 
 for a new Trial of Eustace, and forcing the world to pro- 
 nounce a just verdict on him. Do you really mean to try 
 it?" 
 
 " I do !" 
 
 Mrs. Macallan considered for a moment grimly with her- 
 self. 
 
 "You know how heartily I admire your courage, and your 
 devotion to my unfortunate son," she said. " You know by 
 this time that /"don't cant. But I can not see you attempt 
 to perform impossibilities; I can not let you uselessly risk 
 your reputation and your happiness without warning you 
 before it is too late. My child, the thing you have got it in 
 your head to do is not to be done by you or by any body. 
 Give it up." 
 
 " I am deeply obliged to you, Mrs. Macallan " 
 
 " ' Mother !' " 
 
 " I am deeply obliged to you, mother, for the interest that 
 you take in me, but I can not give it up. Right or wrong, 
 risk or no risk, I must and I will try it !" 
 
 Mrs. Macallan looked at me very attentively, and Sighed 
 to herself. 
 
 " Oh, youth, youth !" she said to herself, sadly. "What 
 a grand thing it is to be young !" She controlled the rising 
 regret, and turned on me suddenly, almost fiercely, with 
 these Avords : " What, in God's name, do you mean to do ?" 
 
 At the instant when she put the question, the idea crossed 
 my mind that Mrs. Macallan could introduce me, if she 
 pleased, to Miserrimus Dexter. She must know him, and 
 know him well, as a guest at Gleninch and an old friend of 
 her son.
 
 176 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 " I mean to consult Miserrimus Dexter," I answered, 
 boldly. 
 
 Mrs. Macallan started back from me with a loud exclama- 
 tion of surprise. 
 
 "Are you out of your senses?" she asked. 
 
 I told her, as I had told Major Fitz-David, that I had 
 reason to think Mr. Dexter's advice might be of real assist- 
 ance to me at starting. 
 
 "And I," rejoined Mrs. Macallan, " have reason to think 
 that your whole project is a mad one, and that in asking 
 Dexter's advice on it you appropriately consult a madman. 
 You needn't start, child ! There is no harm in the creature. 
 I don't mean that he will attack you, or be rude to you. I 
 only say that the last person whom a young woman, placed 
 in your painful and delicate position, ought to associate her- 
 self with is Miserrimus Dexter." 
 
 Strange ! Here was the Major's warning repeated by Mrs. 
 Macallan, almost in the Major's own words. Well! It shared 
 the fate of most warnings. It only made me more and more 
 eager to have my own way. 
 
 " You surprise me very much," I said. "Mr. Dexter's evi- 
 dence, given at the Trial, seems as clear and reasonable as 
 evidence can be." 
 
 " Of course it is !" answered Mrs. Macallan. " The short- 
 hand writers and reporters put his evidence into presentable 
 language before they printed it. If you had heard what he 
 really said, as I did, you would have been either very much 
 disgusted with him or very much amused by him, according 
 to your way of looking at things. He began, fairly enough, 
 with a modest explanation of his absurd Christian name, 
 which at once checked the merriment of the audience. But 
 as he went on the mad side of him showed itself. He mixed 
 up sense and nonsense in the strangest confusion ; he was 
 called to order over and over again ; he was even threatened 
 with fine and imprisonment for contempt of Court, In short, 
 he was just like himself a mixture of the strangest and the 
 most opposite qualities ; at one time perfectly clear and 
 reasonable, as you said just now ; at another breaking out 
 into rhapsodies of the most outrageous kind, like a man in a 
 state of delirium. A more entirely unfit person to advise 
 any body, I tell you again, never lived. You don't expect 
 Me to introduce you to him, I hope ?"
 
 TlIK I..UV AM> TlIK I.ADV. 177 
 
 
 
 "I did think of such a thins:," I answered. "But after 
 what you have said, dear Mrs. Macallan, I give up the idea 
 of course. It is uot a great sacrifice it only obliges me to 
 wait a week for Major Fitz-David's dinner-party. He has 
 promised to ask Miserrimus Dexter to meet me." 
 
 " There is the Major all over !" cried the old lady. " If 
 you pin your faith on that man, I pity you. He is as slip- 
 pery as an eel. I suppose you asked him to introduce you 
 to Dexter ?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Exactly ! Dexter despises him, my dear. He knows as 
 well as I do that Dexter won't go to his dinner. And he 
 takes that roundabout way of keeping you apart, instead 
 of saying No to you plainly, like an honest man." 
 
 This was bad news. But I was, as usual, too obstinate to 
 own myself defeated. 
 
 " If the worst comes to the worst," I said, " I can but write 
 to Mr. Dexter, and beg him to grant me an interview." 
 
 " And go to him by yourself, if he does grant it ?" in- 
 quired Mrs. Macallan. 
 
 " Certainly. By myself." 
 
 " You really mean it ?" 
 
 " I do, indeed." 
 
 " I won't allow you to go by yourself." 
 
 " May I venture to ask, ma'am, how you propose to pre- 
 vent me?" 
 
 " By going with you, to be sure, you obstinate hussy ! 
 Yes, yes I can be as headstrong as you are when I like. 
 Mind ! I don't want to know what your plans are. I don't 
 want to be mixed up with your plans. My son is resigned 
 to the Scotch Verdict. I am resigned to the Scotch Verdict. 
 It is you who won't let matters rest as they are. You are a 
 vain and foolhardy young person. But, somehow, I have 
 taken a liking to you, and I won't let you go to Miserrimus 
 Dexter by yourself. Put on your bonnet !" 
 
 " Now ?" I asked. 
 
 " Certainly ! My carriage is at the door. And the soon- 
 er it's over the better I shall be pleased. Get ready and 
 be quick about it !" 
 
 I required no second bidding. In ten minutes more we 
 were on our way to Miserrimus Dexter. 
 
 Such was the result of my mother-in-law's visit !
 
 178 THE LAW ASD THE LADY. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 MISERRIMUS DEXTEE FIRST VIEW. 
 
 WE had dawdled over our luncheon before Mrs. Macallan 
 arrived at Benjamin's cottage. The ensuing conversation 
 between the old lady and myself (of which I have only pre- 
 sented a brief abstract) lasted until quite late in the after- 
 noon. The sun was setting in heavy clouds when we got 
 into the carriage, and the autumn twilight began to fall 
 around us while we were still on the road. 
 
 The direction in which we drove took us (as well as I 
 could judge) toward the great northern suburb of London. 
 
 For more than an hour the carriage threaded its way 
 through a dingy brick labyrinth of streets, growing smaller 
 and smaller and dirtier and dirtier the farther we went. 
 Emerging from the labyrinth, I noticed in the gathering 
 darkness dreary patches of waste ground which seemed to 
 be neither town nor country. Crossing these, we passed 
 some forlorn outlying groups of houses with dim little scat- 
 tered shops among them, looking like lost country villages 
 wandering on the way to London, disfigured and smoke-dried 
 already by their journey. Darker and darker and drearier 
 and drearier the prospect grew, until the carriage stopped 
 at last, and Mrs. Macallan announced, in her sharply satirical 
 way, that we had reached the end of our journey. " Prince 
 Dexter's Palace, my dear," she said. " What do you think 
 of it?" 
 
 I looked around me, not knowing what to think of it, if 
 the truth must be told. 
 
 We had got out of the carriage, and we were standing on 
 a rough half-made gravel-path. Right and left of me, in the 
 dim light, I saw the half-completed foundations of new houses 
 in their first stage of existence. Boards and bricks were 
 scattered about us. At places gaunt scaffolding poles rose 
 like the branchless trees of the brick desert. Behind us, on 
 the other side of the high-road, stretched another plot of 
 waste ground, as yet not built on. Over the surface of this 
 second desert the ghostly white figures of vagrant ducks
 
 THE LAW AND TIIE LADY. 170 
 
 gleamed at intervals in the mystic light. In front of us, at 
 a distance of two hundred yards or so, as well as I could 
 calculate, rose a black mass, which gradually resolved itself, 
 as my eyes became accustomed to the twilight, into a lonjj, 
 lo\v, and ancient house, with a hedge of evergreens and a 
 pitch-black paling in front of it. The footman led the way 
 toward the paling through the boards and the bricks, the 
 oyster shells and the broken crockery, that strewed the 
 ground. And this was " Prince Dexter's Palace !" 
 
 There was a gate in the pitch-black paling, and a bell- 
 handle discovered with great difficulty. Pulling at the 
 handle, the footman set in motion, to judge by the sound 
 produced, a bell of prodigious size, fitter for a church than a 
 house. 
 
 While we were waiting for admission, Mrs. Macallan 
 pointed to the low, dark line of the old building. 
 
 " There is one of his madnesses," she said. " The specu- 
 lators in this new neighborhood have offered him I don't 
 know how many thousand pounds for the ground that house 
 stands on. It was originally the manor-house of the district. 
 Dexter purchased it many years aince in one of his freaks of 
 fancy. He has no old family associations with the place ; 
 the walls are all but tumbling about his ears ; and the money 
 offered would really be of use to him. But no ! He refused 
 the proposal of the enterprising speculators by letter in these 
 words: ' My house is a standing monument of the picturesque 
 and beautiful, amid the mean, dishonest, and groveling 
 constructions of a mean, dishonest, and groveling age. I 
 keep my house, gentlemen, as a useful lesson to you. Look 
 at it while you are building around me, and blush, if you 
 can, for your work.' Was there over such an absurd letter 
 written yet? Hush ! I hear footsteps in the garden. IK- re 
 comes his cousin. His cousin is a woman. I may as well 
 tell you that, or you might mistake her for a man in the 
 dark." 
 
 A rough, deep voice, which I should certainly never have 
 supposed to be the voice of a woman, hailed us from the in- 
 ner side of the paling. 
 
 " Who's there ?" 
 
 " Mrs. Macallan," answered my mother-in-law. 
 
 " What do you want ?" 
 
 " We want to see Dexter."
 
 180 *2~ THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 " You can't see him." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 " What did you say your name was ?" 
 
 "Macallan. Mrs. Macallan. Eustace Macallan's mother. 
 Now do you understand ?" 
 
 The voice muttered and grunted behind the paling, and a 
 key turned in the lock of the gate. 
 
 Admitted to the garden, in the deep shadow of the shrubs, 
 I could see nothing distinctly of the woman with the rough 
 voice, except that she wore a man's hat. Closing the gate 
 behind us, without a word of welcome or explanation, she 
 led the way to the house. Mrs. Macallan followed her easily, 
 knowing the place ; and I walked in Mrs. Macallan's foot- 
 steps as closely as I could. " This is a nice family," my 
 mother-in-law whispered to me. "Dexter's cousin is the only 
 woman in the house and Dexter's cousin is an idiot." 
 
 We entered a spacious hall with a low ceiling, dimly light- 
 ed at its farther end by one small oil-lamp. I could see that 
 there were pictures on the grim, brown walls, but the subjects 
 represented were invisible in the obscure and shadowy light. 
 
 Mrs. Macallan addressed. herself to the speechless cousin 
 with the man's hat. 
 
 "Now tell me," she said. "Why can't we see Dexter?" 
 [The cousin took a sheet of paper off the table, and handed 
 it to Mrs. Macallan. 
 
 "The Master's writing," said this strange creature, in a 
 hoarse whisper, as if the bare idea of " the Master " terrified 
 her. " Read it. And stay or go, which you please." 
 
 She opened an invisible side door in the wall, masked by 
 one of the pictures disappeared through it like a ghost 
 and left us together alone in the hall. 
 
 Mrs. Macallan approached the oil-lamp, and looked by its 
 light at the sheet of paper which the woman had given to her. 
 I followed and peeped over her shoulder without ceremony. 
 The paper exhibited written characters, traced in a wonder- 
 fully large and firm handwriting. Had I caught the infec- 
 tion of madness in the air of the house ? Or did I really see 
 before me these words ? 
 
 "NOTICE. My immense imagination is at work. Visions 
 of heroes unroll themselves before me. I reanimate in my- 
 self the spirits of the departed great. My brains are boiling
 
 MILS. MACALLAN AI'PROACIIKU THE OIL-LAMP, AM- LOOKUP I!V W8 I I. .Hi 
 THE SHEET OF PAPEK WHICH THE WOMAN HAD GIVEN TO HElt."
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 181 
 
 in my head. Any persons who disturb me, under existing cir- 
 fiimstances, will do it at the peril of their lives. DEXTER." _ 
 
 Mrs. Macallan looked around at me quietly with her sar- 
 donic smile. 
 
 "Do you still persist in wanting to be introduced to him?" 
 she asked. 
 
 The mockery in the tone of the question roused my pride. 
 I determined that I would not be the first to give way. 
 
 " Not if I am putting you in peril of your life, ma'am," I 
 answered, pertly enough, pointing to the paper in her hand. 
 
 My mother-in-law returned to the hall table, and put the 
 paper back on it without condescending to reply. She then 
 led the way to an arched recess on our right hand, beyond 
 which I dimly discerned a broad flight of oaken stairs. 
 
 " Follow me," said Mrs. Macallan, mounting the stairs in 
 the dark. " I know where to find him." 
 
 We groped our way up the stairs to the first landing. 
 The next flight of steps, turning in the reverse direction, was 
 faintly illuminated, like the hall below, by one oil -lamp, 
 placed in some invisible position above us. Ascending the 
 second flight of stairs and crossing a short corridor, we dis- 
 covered the lamp, through the open door of a quaintly shaped 
 circular room, burning on the mantel-piece., Its light illu- 
 minated a strip of thick tapestry, hanging loose from the 
 ceiling to the floor, on the wall opposite to the door by 
 which we had entered. 
 
 Mrs. Macallan drew aside the strip of tapestry, and, sign- 
 ing me to follow her, passed behind it. 
 
 " Listen !" she whispered. 
 
 Standing on the inner side of the tapestry, I found myself 
 in a dark recess or passage, at the end of which a ray of light 
 from the lamp showed me a closed door. I listened, and 
 heard on the other side of the door a shouting voice, accom- 
 panied by an extraordinary rumbling and whistling sound, 
 traveling backward and forward, as well as I could judge, 
 over a great space. Now the rumbling and the whistling 
 would reach their climax of loudness, and would oveix-ome 
 the resonant notes of the shouting voice. Then again those 
 louder sounds gradually retreated into distance, and the 
 shouting voice made itself heard as the more audible sound 
 of the two. The door must have been of prodigious solidity.
 
 182 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 Listen as intently as I might, I failed to catch the articulate 
 words (if any) which the voice was pronouncing, and I was 
 equally at a loss to penetrate the cause which produced the 
 rumbling and whistling sounds. 
 
 "What can possibly be going on," I whispered to Mrs. 
 Macallan, " on the other side of that door ?" 
 
 "Step softly," my mother-in-law answered, " and come 
 and see." 
 
 She arranged the tapestry behind us so as completely to 
 shut out the light in the circular room. Then noiselessly 
 turning the handle, she opened the heavy door. 
 
 We kept ourselves concealed in the shadow of the recess, 
 and looked through the open doorway. 
 
 I saw (or fancied I saw, in the obscurity) a long room with 
 a low ceiling. The dying gleam of an ill-kept fire formed 
 the only light by which I could judge of objects and dis- 
 tances. Redly illuminating the central portion of the room, 
 opposite to which we were standing, the fire-light left the 
 extremities shadowed in 'almost total darkness. I had bare- 
 ly time to notice this before I heard the rumbling and whis- 
 tling sounds approaching me. A high chair on wheels moved 
 by, through the field of red light, carrying a shadowy figure 
 with floating hair, and arms furiously raised and lowered 
 working the machinery that propelled the chair at its ut- 
 most rate of speed. " I am Napoleon, at the sunrise of Aus- 
 terlitz !" shouted the man in the chair as he swept past me 
 on his rumbling and whistling wheels, in the r'ed glow of the 
 fire-light. "I give the word, and thrones rock, and kings 
 fall, and nations tremble, and men by tens of thousands fight 
 and bleed and die !" The chair rushed out of sight, and the 
 shouting man in it became another hero. "I am Nelson!" 
 the ringing voice cried now. "I am leading the fleet at 
 Trafalgar. I issue my commands, prophetically conscious of 
 victory and death. I see my own apotheosis, my public fu- 
 neral, my nation's tears, my burial in the glorious church. 
 The ages remember me, and the poets sing my praise in im- 
 mortal verse !" The strident wheels turned at the far end 
 of the room and came back. The fantastic and frightful ap- 
 parition, man and machinery blended in one the new Cen- 
 taur, half man, half chair flew by me again in the dying 
 light. "I am Shakespeare !" cried the frantic creature now. 
 "I am writing Lear, the tragedy of tragedies. Ancients
 
 THK I.A\V AM) TIIK LADY. 183 
 
 and moderns, I am the poet who towers over them all. 
 Light ! light ! the lines flow out like lava from the eruption 
 of my volcanic mind. Light ! light ! for the poet of all time 
 to write the words that live forever!" He ground and tore 
 his way back toward the middle of the room. As he ap- 
 proached the fire-place a last morsel of unburned coal (or 
 wood) burst into momentary flame, and showed the open 
 doorway. In that moment he saw us! The wheel-chair 
 stopped with a shock that shook the crazy old floor of the 
 room, altered its course, and flew at us with the rush of a 
 wild animal. We drew back, just in time to escape it, against 
 the wall of the recess. The chair passed on, and burst aside 
 the hanging tapestry. The light of the lamp in the circular 
 room poured in through the gap. The creature in the chair 
 checked his furious wheels, and looked back over his shoulder 
 with an impish curiosity horrible to see. 
 
 "Have I run over them? Have I ground them to powder 
 for presuming to intrude on me?" he said to himself. As 
 the expression of this amiable doubt passed his lips his eyes 
 lighted on us. His mind instantly veered back again to 
 Shakespeare and King Lear. " Goneril and Regan !" he 
 cried. " My two unnatural daughters, my she-devil children 
 come to mock at me !" 
 
 "Nothing of the sort," said my mother-in-law, as quietly 
 as if she were addressing a perfectly reasonable being. " I 
 am your old friend, Mrs. Macallan ; and I have brought Eus- 
 tace Macallan's second wife to see you." 
 
 The instant she pronounced those last words, " Eustace 
 Macallan's second wife," the man in the chair sprang out of 
 it with a shrill cry of horror, as if she had shot him. For 
 one moment we saw a head and body in the air, absolutely 
 deprived of the lower limbs. The moment after, the terri- 
 ble creature touched the floor as lightly as a monkey, on his 
 hands. The grotesque horror of the scene culminated in his 
 hopping away, on his hands, at a prodigious speed, until he 
 reached the fire-place in the long room. There he crouched 
 over the dying embers, shuddering. and shivering, and mut- 
 tering, "Oh, pity me, pity me!" dozens and dozens of times 
 to himself. 
 
 This was the man whose advice I had come to ask whose 
 assistance I had confidently counted on in my hour of need.
 
 184 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 MISERRIMUS DEXTER SECOND VIEW. 
 
 THOROUGHLY disheartened and disgusted, and (if I must 
 honestly confess it) thoroughly frightened too, I whispered 
 to Mrs. Macallan, " I was wrong, and you were right. Let 
 us go." 
 
 The ears of Miserrimus Dexter must have been as sensitive 
 as the ears of a dog. He heard me say, "Let us go." 
 
 "No!" he called out. "Bring Eustace Macallan's second 
 wife in here. I am a gentleman I must apologize to her. 
 I am a student of human character I wish to see her." 
 
 The whole man appeared to have undergone a complete 
 transformation. He spoke in the gentlest of voices, and he 
 sighed hysterically when he had done, like a woman recov- 
 ering from a burst of tears. Was it reviving courage or re- 
 viving curiosity? When Mrs. Macallan said to me, "The 
 fit is over now ; do you still wish to go away ?" I answered, 
 " No ; I am ready to go in." 
 
 "Have you recovered your belief in him already?" asked 
 my mother-in-law, in her mercilessly satirical way. 
 
 "I have recovered from my terror of him," I replied. 
 
 "I am sorry I terrified you," said the soft voice at the 
 fire-place. "Some people think I am a little mad at times. 
 You came, I suppose, at one of the times if some people are 
 right. I admit that I am a visionary. My imagination runs 
 away with me, and I say and do strange things. On those 
 occasions, any body who reminds me of that horrible Trial 
 throws me back again into the past, and causes me unutter- 
 able nervous suffering. I am a very tender-hearted man. 
 As the necessary consequence (in such a world as this), I am 
 a miserable wretch. Accept my excuses. Come in, both of 
 you. Come in and pity me." 
 
 A child would not have been frightened of him now. A 
 child would have gone in and pitied him. 
 
 The room was getting darker and darker. We could just 
 see the crouching figure of Miserrimus Dexter at the expiring 
 fire and that was all.
 
 THE I..UV AND T1IE LADY. 185 
 
 "Are we to have no light?" asked Mrs. Macallan. "And 
 is this lady to see yon, when the light comes, out of your 
 chair?" 
 
 He lifted something bright and metallic, hanging round 
 his neck, and blew on it a series of shrill, trilling, bird-like 
 notes. After an interval he was answered by a similar series 
 of notes, sounding faintly in some distant region of the house. 
 
 "Ariel is coming," he said. "Compose yourself, Mamma 
 Macallan ; Ariel will make me presentable to a lady's eyes." 
 
 He hopped away on his hands into the darkness at the 
 end of the room. " Wait a little," said Mrs. Macallan, "and 
 you will have another surprise you will see the ' delicate 
 Ariel.'" 
 
 We heard heavy footsteps in the circular room. 
 
 " Ariel !" sighed Miserrimus Dexter out of the darkness, 
 in his softest notes. 
 
 To my astonishment the coarse, masculine voice of the 
 cousin in the man's hat the Caliban's, rather than the Ari- 
 el's voice answered, " Here !" 
 
 " My chair, Ariel !" 
 
 The person thus strangely misnamed drew aside the tap- 
 estry, so as to let in more light ; then entered the room, push- 
 ing the wheeled chair before her. She stooped and lifted 
 Miserrimus Dexter from the floor, like a child. Before she 
 could- put him into the chair, he sprang out of her arms with 
 a little gleeful cry, and alighted on his seat, like a bird alight- 
 ing on its perch ! 
 
 " The lamp," said Miserrimus Dexter, " and the looking- 
 glass. Pardon me," he added, addressing us, "for turning 
 my back on you. You mustn't see me until my hair is set 
 to rights. Ariel ! the brush, the comb, and the perfumes !" 
 
 Carrying the lamp in one hand, the looking-glass in the 
 other, and the brush (with the comb stuck in it) between 
 her teeth, Ariel the Second, otherwise Dexter's cousin, pre- 
 sented herself plainly before me for the first time. I could 
 now see the girl's round, fleshy, inexpressive face, her ray- 
 li'ss and colorless eyes, her coarse nose and heavy chin. A 
 creature half alive ; an imperfectlv developed animal in shape- 
 less form, clad in a man's pilot jacket, and treading in a man's 
 heavy laced boots, with nothing but an old red-flannel pet- 
 ticoat, and a broken comb in her frowzy flaxen hair, to tell 
 us that she was a woman such was the inhospitable person
 
 186 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 who had received us in the darkness when we first entered 
 the house. 
 
 This wonderful valet, collecting her materials for dressing 
 her still more wonderful master's hair, gave him the looking- 
 glass (a hand-mirror), and addressed herself to her work. 
 
 She combed, she brushed, she oiled, she perfumed the 
 flowing locks and the long silky beard of Miserrimus Dexter 
 with the strangest mixture of dullness and dexterity that I 
 ever saw. Done in brute silence, with a lumpish look and a 
 clumsy gait, the work was perfectly well done nevertheless. 
 The imp in the chair superintended the whole proceeding 
 critically by means of his hand-mirror. He was too deeply 
 interested in this occupation to speak .until some of the con- 
 cluding touches to his beard brought the misnamed Ariel in 
 front of him, and so turned her full face toward the part of 
 the room in which Mrs. Macallan and I were standing. Then 
 he addressed us, taking especial care, however, not to turn 
 his head our way while his toilet was still incomplete. 
 
 " Mamma Macallan," he said, " what is the Christian name 
 of your son's second wife?" 
 
 "Why do you want to know?" asked my mother-in-law. 
 
 " I want to know because Lcan't address her as ' Mrs. Eus- 
 tace Macallan.' " 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "It recalls the other Mrs. Eustace Macallan. If I am re- 
 minded of those horrible days at Gleninch my fortitude will 
 give way I shall burst out screaming again." 
 
 Hearing this, I hastened to interpose. 
 
 "My name is Valeria," I said. 
 
 " A Roman name," remarked M^errimus Dexter. " I like 
 it. My mind is cast in the Roman mould. My bodily build 
 would have been Roman if I had been born with legs. I 
 shall call you Mrs. Valeria, unless you disapprove of it." 
 
 I hastened to say that I was far from disapproving of it. 
 
 " Very good," said Miserrimus Dexter. " Mrs. Valeria, 
 do you see the face of this creature in front of me?" 
 
 He pointed with the hand-mirror to his cousin as uncon- 
 cernedly as he might have pointed to a dog. His cousin, on 
 her side, took no more notice than a dog would have taken 
 of the contemptuous phrase by which he had designated her. 
 She went on combing and oiling his beard as composedly as
 
 THE LAW AND TUB LADY. 187 
 
 "It is the face of an idiot, isn't it?" pursued Miserrimus 
 Dexter. " Look at her ! She is a mere vegetable. A cab- 
 bage in a garden has as much life and expression in it as 
 that girl exhibits at the present moment. Would you be- 
 lieve there was latent intelligence, affection, pride, fidelity, 
 in such a half-developed being as this?" 
 
 I was really ashamed to answer him. Quite needlessly ! 
 The impenetrable young woman went on with her master's 
 beard. A machine could not have taken less notice of the 
 life and the talk around it than this incomprehensible creat- 
 ure. 
 
 "7" have got at that latent affection, pride, fidelity, and the 
 rest of it," resumed Miserrimus Dexter, "/hold the key to 
 that dormant Intelligence. Grand thought! Now look at 
 IRT when I speak. (I named her, poor wretch, in one of my 
 ironical moments. She has got to like her name, just as a 
 dog gets to like his collar.) Now, Mrs. Valeria, look and 
 listen. Ariel !" 
 
 The girl's dull face began to brighten. The girl's mechan- 
 ically moving hand stopped, and held the comb in suspense. 
 
 "Ariel! you have learned to dress my hair and anoint my 
 beard, haven't you ?" 
 
 Her face still brightened. "Yes! yes! yes!" she answered, 
 eagerly. " And you say I have learned to do it well, don't 
 you ?" 
 
 " I say that. Would you like to let any body else do it 
 for you ?" 
 
 Her eyes melted softly into light and life. Her strange 
 unwomanly voice sank to the gentlest tones that I had heard 
 from her yet. 
 
 " Nobody else shall do it for me," she said, at once proud- 
 ly and tenderly. " Nobody, as long as I live, shall touch 
 you but me." 
 
 "Not even the lady there?" asked Miserrimus Dexter, 
 pointing backward with his hand -mirror to the place at 
 which I was standing. 
 
 Her eyes suddenly flashed, her hand suddenly shook the 
 comb at me, in a burst of jealous rage. 
 
 "Let her try!" cried the poor creature, raising her voice 
 again to its hoarsest notes. " Let her touch you if she dares !" 
 
 Dexter laughed at the childish outbreak. "That will do, 
 my delicate Ariel," he said. " I dismiss your Intelligence 
 T
 
 188 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 for the present. Relapse into your former self. Finish my 
 beard." 
 
 She passively resumed her work. The new light in her 
 eyes, the new expression in her face, faded little by little and 
 died out. In another minute the face was as vacant and as 
 lumpish as before ; the hands did their work again with the 
 lifeless dexterity which had so painfully impressed me when 
 she first took up the brush. Miserrimus Dexter appeared to 
 be perfectly satisfied with these results. 
 
 "I thought my little experiment might interest you," he 
 said. " You see how it is? The dormant intelligence of my 
 curious cousin is like the dormant sound in a musical instru- 
 ment. I play upon it and it answers to my touch. She 
 likes being played upon. But her great delight is to hear 
 me tell a story. I. puzzle her to the verge of distraction ; 
 and the more I confuse her, the better she likes the story. 
 It is the greatest fun ; you really must see it some day." lie 
 indulged himself in a last look at the mirror. " Ha !" he said, 
 complacently ; " now I shall do. Vanish, Ariel !" 
 
 She tramped out of the room in her heavy boots, with the 
 mute obedience of a trained animal. I said "Good-night" 
 ns she passed me. She neither returned the salutation nor- 
 looked at me: the words simply produced no effect on her 
 dull senses. The one voice that could reach her was silent. 
 She had relapsed once more into" the vacant inanimate creat- 
 ure who had opened the gate to us, until it pleased Miserri- 
 mus Dexter to speak to her again. 
 
 "Valeria !" said my mother-in-law. " Our modest host is 
 waiting to see what you think of him." 
 
 While my attention was fixed on his cousin he had Avheel- 
 cd his chair around so as to face me, with the light of the lamp 
 falling full on him. In mentioning his appearance as a wit- 
 ness at the Trial,! find I have borrowed (without meaning to 
 do so) from my experience of him at this later time. I saw 
 plainly now the bright intelligent face and the large clear 
 blue eyes, the lustrous waving hair of a light chestnut col- 
 or, the long delicate white hands, and the magnificent throat 
 and chest which I have elsewhere described. The deformity 
 which degraded and destroyed the manly beauty of his head 
 and breast was bidden from view by an Oriental robe of 
 many colors, thrown over the chair like a coverlet. He was 
 clothed in a jacket of black velvet, fastened loosely across
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 189 
 
 his chest with large malachite buttons; and he wore lace 
 ruffles at the ends of his sleeves, in the fashion of the last 
 century. It may well have been due to want of perception 
 on inv part but I could see nothing mad in him, nothing in 
 any way repelling, as he now looked at me. The one delect 
 that I could discover in his face was at the outer corners of 
 his eyes, just under the temple. Here when he laughed, and 
 in a lesser degree when he smiled, the skin contracted into 
 quaint little wrinkles and folds, which looked strangely out 
 of harmony with the almost youthful appearance of the rest 
 of his face. As'to his other features, the mouth, so far as his 
 beard and mustache permitted me to see it, was small and 
 delicately formed ; the nose perfectly shaped on the straight 
 Grecian model was perhaps a little too thin, judged by com- 
 pariTOn with the full cheeks and the high massive forehead. 
 Looking at him as a whole (and speaking of him, of course, 
 from a womanls, not a physiognomist's, point of view), I can 
 only describe him as being an unusually handsome man. A 
 painter would have reveled in him as a model for St. John. 
 And a young girl, ignorant of what the Oriental robe hid 
 from view, would have said .to heysclf, the instant she looked 
 at him, "Here is the hero of my dreams !" 
 
 His blue eyes large as the eyes of a woman, clear as the 
 eyes of a chihl rested on me. the* moment I turned toward 
 him, with a strangely varying play of expression, which at 
 once interested and perplexed me. 
 
 Now there was doubt uneasy, painful doubt in the look ; 
 and now again it changed brightly to approval, so open and 
 unrestrained that a vain woman might have fancied she had 
 made a conquest of him at first sight. Suddenly a new emo- 
 tion seemed to take possession of him. His eyes sank, his 
 head drooped ; he lifted his hands with a gesture of regret. 
 He muttered and murmured to himself; pursuing some secret 
 and melancholy train of thought, which seemed to lead him 
 farther and farther away from present objects. of interest, and 
 to plunge him deeper and deeper in troubled recollections of 
 the past. Here and there I caught some of the words. Lit- 
 tle by little I found myself trying to fathom what was dark- 
 ly passing in this strange man's mind. 
 
 "A far more charming face," I heard him say. "But 
 no not a more beautiful figure. AVhat figure was ever 
 more beautiful than hers? Something but not all of her
 
 190 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 enchanting grace. Where is the resemblance which has 
 brought her back to me ? In the pose of the figure, per- 
 haps. In the movement of the figure, perhaps. Poor mar- 
 tyred angel ! What a life ! And what a death ! what a 
 death !" 
 
 Was he comparing me with the victim of the poison 
 with my husband's first wife ? His words seemed to justify 
 the conclusion. If I were right, the dead woman had evi- 
 dently been a favorite with him. There was no misinter- 
 preting the broken tones of his voice when he spoke of her : 
 he had admired her, living ; he mourned her, dead. Suppos- 
 ing that I could prevail upon myself to admit this extraor- 
 dinary person into my confidence, what would be the result ? 
 Should I be the gainer or the loser by the resemblance which 
 he fancied he had discovered ? Would the sight of me\on- 
 sole him or pain him ? I waited eagerly to hear more on the 
 subject of the first wife. Not a word more escaped his lips. 
 A new change came over him. He lifted his head with a 
 start, and looked about him as a weary man might look if he 
 was suddenly disturbed in a deep sleep. 
 
 " What have I done?" he said. " Have I been letting my 
 mind drift again?" He shuddered and sighed. "Oh, that 
 house of Gleninch !" he murmured, sadly, to himself. " Shall 
 I never get away from.it'in my thoughts? Oh, that house 
 of Gleninch !" 
 
 To my infinite disappointment, Mrs. Macallan checked the 
 further revelation of what was passing in his mind. 
 
 Something in the tone and manner of his allusion to her 
 son's country-house seemed to have offended her. She inter- 
 posed sharply and decisively. 
 
 " Gently, my friend, gently !" she said. " I don't think you 
 quite know what you are talking about." 
 
 His great blue eyes flashed at her fiercely. With one turn 
 of his hand he brought his chair close at her side. The next 
 instant he caught her by the arm, and forced her to bend to 
 him, until he could whisper in her ear. He was violently 
 agitated. His whisper was loud enough to make itself heard 
 where I was sitting at 'the time. 
 
 " I don't know what I am talking about ?" he repeated, 
 with his eyes fixed attentively, not on my mother-in-law, 
 but on me. "You short-sighted old woman! where are your 
 spectacles ? Look at her ! Do you see no resemblance
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 191 
 
 the figure, not the face ! do you see no resemblance there 
 to Eustace's first wife ?" 
 
 "Pure fancy !" rejoined Mrs. Macallan. " I see nothing of 
 the" sort." 
 
 He shook her impatiently. 
 
 "Not so loud !" he whispered. "She will hear you." 
 
 " I have heard you both," I said. " You need have no fear, 
 Mr. Dexter, of speaking before me. I know that my husband 
 had a first wife, and I know how miserably she died. I have 
 read the Trial." 
 
 " You have read the life and death of a martyr !" cried 
 Miserrimus Dexter.' He suddenly wheeled his chair my 
 way; he bent over me; his eyes filled with tears. "No- 
 body appreciated her at her true value," he said, " but me. 
 Xobody but me ! nobody but me !" 
 
 Mrs. Macallan walked away impatiently to the end of the 
 room. 
 
 " When you are ready, Valeria, I am," she said. " We can 
 not keep the servants and the horses waiting much longer in 
 this bleak place." 
 
 I was too deeply interested in leading Miserrimus Dexter 
 to pursue the subject on which he had touched to be willing 
 to leave him at that moment. I pretended not to have heard 
 Mrs. Macallan. I laid my hand, as if by accident, on the 
 wheel-chair to keep him near me. 
 
 "You showed me how highly you esteemed that poor lady 
 in your evidence at the Trial," I said. " I believe, Mr. Dex- 
 ter, you have ideas of your own about the mystery of her 
 death ?" 
 
 He had been looking at my hand, resting on the arm of 
 his chair, until I ventured on my question. At that he sud- 
 denly raised his eyes, and fixed them with a frowning and fur- 
 tive suspicion on my face. 
 
 "How do you know I have ideas of my own?" he asked, 
 sternly. 
 
 " I know it from reading the Trial," I answered. " The 
 lawyer who cross-examined you spoke almost in the very 
 words which I have just used. ' I had no intention of offend- 
 ing you, Mr. Dexter." 
 
 His face cleared as rapidly as it had clouded. He smiled, 
 and laid his hand on mine. His touch struck me cold. I 
 felt every nerve in me shivering under it ; I drew my hand 
 jiway quickly.
 
 192 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," he said " if I have misunderstood 
 you. I have ideas of my own about that unhappy lady." 
 He paused and looked at me in silence very earnestly. " Have 
 you any ideas?" lie asked. "Ideas about her life? or about 
 her death ?" 
 
 I was deeply interested ; I was burning to hear more. It 
 might encourage him to speak if I were candid with him. I 
 answered, " Yes." 
 
 " Ideas which you have mentioned to any one ?" he went 
 on. 
 
 " To no living creature," I replied " as yet." 
 
 "This is very strange !" he said, still earnestly reading my 
 face. " What interest can you have in a dead woman whom 
 you never knew? Why did you ask me that question just 
 now? Have you any motive in coming here to see me?" 
 
 I boldly acknowledged the truth. I said, "I have a motive." 
 
 " Is it connected with Eustace Macallan's first wife ?" 
 
 "It is." 
 
 " With any thing that happened in her lifetime ?" 
 , "No." 
 
 " With her death ?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 He suddenly clasped his hands with a wild gesture of de- 
 spair, and then pressed them both on his head, as if he were 
 struck by some sudden pain. 
 
 " I can't hear it to-night !" he said. " I would give worlds 
 to hear it, but I daren't. I should lose all hold over myself 
 in the state I am in now. I am not equal to raking up the 
 horror and the mystery of the past ; I have not courage 
 enough to open the grave of the martyred dead. Did you 
 hear me when you came here ? I have an immense imagina- 
 tion. It runs riot at times. It makes an actor of me. I play 
 the parts of all the heroes that ever lived. I feel their char- 
 acters. I merge myself in their individualities. For the 
 time I am the man I fancy myself to be. I can't help it. I 
 am obliged to do it. If I restrained my imagination when 
 the fit is on me, I should go mad. I let myself loose. It 
 lasts for hours. It leaves me with my energies worn out, 
 with my sensibilities frightfully acute. Rouse any melan- 
 choly or terrible associations in me at such times, and I am 
 capable of hysterics, I am capable of screaming. You heard 
 me scream. You shall not see me in hysterics. No, Mrs.
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 193 
 
 Valeria no, you innocent reflection of the dead .iiul gone 
 I would not frighten you for the world. Will you come 
 here to-morrow in the daytime ? I have got a chaise and a 
 l>ony. Ariel, my delicate Ariel, can drive. She shaR call at 
 Mamma Macallan's and fetch you. We will talk to-morrow, 
 when I am fit for it. I am dying to hear you. I will be fit 
 for you in the morning. I will be civil, intelligent, commu- 
 nicative, in the morning. No more of it now. Away with 
 the subject the too exciting, the too interesting subject ! I 
 must compose myself, or my brains will explode in my head. 
 Music is the true narcotic for excitable brains. My harp ! 
 my harp !" 
 
 lie rushed away in his chair to the far end of the room, 
 passing Mrs. Macallan as she returned to me, bent on hasten- 
 ing our departure. 
 
 "Come!" said the old lady, irritably. "You have seen 
 him, and he has made a good show of himself. More of him 
 might be tiresome. Come away." 
 
 The chair returned to us more slowly. Miserrimus Dex- 
 ter was working it with one hand only. In the other he held 
 a harp of a pattern which I had hitherto only seen in pictures. 
 The strings were few in number, and the instrument was so 
 small that I could have held it easily on my lap. It was the 
 ancient harp of the pictured Muses and the legendary Welsh 
 bards. 
 
 " Good-night, Dexter," said Mrs. Macallan. 
 
 He held up one hand imperatively. 
 
 " Wait !" he said. "Let her hear me sing." lie turned to 
 me. "I decline to be indebted to other people for my poetry 
 and my music," he went on. " I compose my own poetry and 
 my own music. I improvise. Give me a moment to think. I 
 will improvise for You." 
 
 He closed his eyes and rested his head on the frame of the 
 harp. His fingers gently touched the strings while he was 
 thinking. In. a few minutes he lifted his head, looked at me, 
 and struck the first notes the prelude to the song. It was 
 wild, barbaric, monotonous music, utterly unlike any modern 
 composition. Sometimes it suggested a slow and undulating 
 Oriental dance. Sometimes it modulated into tones which 
 reminded me of the severer harmonies of the old Gregorian 
 chants. The words, when they followed the prelude, were 
 as wild, as recklessly free from all restraint of critical rules,
 
 194 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 as the music. They were assuredly inspired by the occasion ; 
 I was the theme of the strange song. And thus in one of 
 the finest tenor voices I ever heard my poet sang of me: 
 
 "Why does she come? 
 She reminds me of the lost ; 
 She reminds me of the dead : 
 
 In her form like the other, 
 
 In her walk like the other : 
 Why does she come ? 
 
 " Does Destiny bring her? 
 
 Shall we range together 
 The mazes of the past ? 
 
 Shall we search together 
 The secrets of the past ? 
 
 Shall we interchange thoughts, surmises, suspicions? 
 Does Destiny bring her ? 
 
 "The Future will show. 
 Let the night pass ; 
 Let the day come. 
 I shall see into Her mind : 
 She will look into Mine. 
 The Future will show." 
 
 His voice sank, his fingers touched the strings more and 
 more feebly as he approached the last lines. The over- 
 wrought brain needed and took its reanimating repose. At 
 the finul words his eyes slowly closed. His head lay back 
 on the chair. He slept with his arms around his harp, as a 
 child sleeps hugging its last new toy. 
 
 We stole out of the room on tiptoe, and left Miserrimus 
 Dexter poet, composer, and madman in his peaceful sleep. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 MOKE OF MY OBSTINACY. 
 
 ARIEL was down-stairs in the shadowy hall, half asleep, 
 half awake, waiting to see the visitors clear of the house. 
 Without speaking to us, without looking at us, she led the 
 way down the dark garden walk, and locked the gate be- 
 hind us. " Good-night, Ariel," I called out to her over the 
 paling. Nothing answered me but the tramp of her heavy
 
 THE LAW ANJ> THE LADY. ^^> I 195 
 
 footsteps returning to the house, and the dull thump, a mo- 
 ment afterward, of the closing door. 
 
 The footman had thoughtfully lighted the carriage lamps. 
 Carrying one of them to serve as a lantern, he lighted us 
 over the wilds of the brick desert, and lauded us safely on 
 the path by the high-road. 
 
 "Well!" said my mother-in-law, when we were comfort- 
 ably seated in the carriage again. " You have seen Miserri- 
 mus Dexter, and I hope you are satisfied. I will do him 
 the justice to declare that I never, in all my experience, saw 
 him more completely crazy than he was to-night. What do 
 you say ?" 
 
 ^ " I don't presume to dispute your opinion," I answered. 
 [^'But, speaking for myself, I am not quite sure that he is 
 mad." 
 
 "Xot mad!" cried Mrs. Macallan, " after those frantic 
 performances in his chair ? Xot mad, after the exhibition 
 he made of his unfortunate cousin ? Xot mad, after the 
 song that he sang in your honor, and the falling asleep by 
 way of conclusion ? Oh, Valeria! Valeria! Well said the 
 wisdom of our ancestors there are none so blind as those 
 who won't see." 
 
 " Pardon me, dear Mrs. Macallan, I saw every thing that 
 you mention, and I never felt more surprised or more con- 
 founded in my life. But, now I have recovered from my 
 amazement, and can think it over quietly, I must still vent- 
 ure to doubt whether this strange man is really mad in the 
 true meaning of the word. It seems to me that he only 
 expresses ji admit in a very reckless and boisterous way 
 thoughts and feelings which most of us are ashamed of as 
 weaknesses, and which we keep to ourselves accordingly.]^] I 
 confess I have often fancied myself transformed into some 
 other person, and have felt a certain pleasure in seeing my- 
 self in my new character. One of our first amusements as 
 children (if we have any imagination at all) is to get out of 
 our own characters, and to try the characters of other per- 
 sonages as a change to be fairies, to be queens, to be any 
 thing, in short, but what we really are. Mr. Dexter lets out 
 the secret just as the children do, and if that is madness, lie 
 is certainly mad. But I noticed that when his imagination 
 cooled down he became Miserrimus Dexter again he no 
 more believed himself than we believed him to be Xapoleon 
 12
 
 196 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 or Shakespeare. Besides, some allowance is surely to be made 
 for the solitary, sedentary life that he leads. I am not 
 learned enough to trace the influence of that life in making 
 him what he is ; but I think I can see the result in an over- 
 excited imagination, and I fancy I can trace his exhibiting 
 his power over the poor cousin and his singing of that won- 
 derful song to no more formidable cause than inordinate self- 
 conceit. I hope the confession will not lower me seriously 
 in your good opinion ; but I must say I have enjoyed my 
 visit, and, worse still, Miserrimus Dexter really interests 
 me." ^ 
 
 "Does this learned discourse on Dexter mean that you 
 are going to see him again ?" asked Mrs. Macallan. 
 
 " I don't know how I may feel about it to-morrow morn- 
 ing," I said, " but my impulse at this moment is decidedly to 
 see him again. I had a little talk with him while you were 
 away at the other end of the room, and I believe he realiy 
 can be of use to me " 
 
 " Of use to you in what ?" interposed my mother-in-law. 
 
 " In the one object which I have in view the object, dear 
 Mrs. Macallan, which I regret to say you do not approve." 
 
 "And you are going to take him into your confidence? 
 to open your whole mind to such a man as the man we have 
 just left?" 
 
 "Yes, if I think of it to-morrow as I think of it to-night. 
 I dare say it is a risk ; but I must run risks. I know I am 
 not prudent ; but prudence won't help a woman in my posi- 
 tion, with my end to gain." 
 
 Mrs. Macallan made no further remonstrance in words. 
 She opened a capacious pocket in front of the carriage, 
 and took from it a box of matches and a railway reading- 
 lamp. 
 
 "You provoke me," said the old lady, " into showing you 
 what your husband thinks of this new whirn of yours. I 
 have got his letter with me his last letter from Spain. You 
 shall judge for yourself, you poor deluded young creature, 
 whether my son is worthy of the sacrifice the useless and 
 hopeless sacrifice which you are bent on making of yourself 
 for his sake. Strike a light !" 
 
 I willingly obeyed her. Ever since she had informed me 
 of Eustace's departure to Spain I had been eager for more 
 news of him, for something to sustain my spirits, after so
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 197 
 
 much that had disappointed and depressed me. Thus far I 
 did not even know whether my husband thought of me 
 sometimes in his self-imposed exile. As to his regretting 
 already the rash act which had separated us, it was still too 
 soon to begin hoping for that. 
 
 The lamp having been lighted, and fixed in its place be- 
 tween the two front windows of the carriage, Mrs. Macallan 
 produced her son's letter. There is no folly like the folly 
 of love. It cost me a hard struggle to restrain myself from 
 kissing the paper on which the dear hand had rested. 
 
 " There !" said my mother-in-law. " Begin on the second 
 page, the page devoted to you. Read straight down to the 
 last line at the bottom, and, in God's name, come back to 
 your senses, child, before it is too late !" 
 
 I followed my instructions, and read these words : 
 
 " Can I trust myself to write of Valeria ? I must write 
 of her. Tell me how she is, how she looks, what she is do- 
 ing. I am always thinking of her. Xot a day passes but I 
 mourn the loss of her. Oh, if she had only been contented 
 to let matters rest as they were ! Oh, if she had never dis- 
 covered the miserable truth ! 
 
 " She spoke of reading the Trial when I saw her last. Has 
 she persisted in doing so ? I believe I say this seriously, 
 mother I believe the shame and the horror of it would 
 have been the death of me if I had met her face to face when 
 she first knew of the ignominy that I have suffered, of the 
 infamous suspicion of which I have been publicly made the 
 subject. Think of those pure eyes looking at a man who 
 lias been accused (and never wholly absolved) of the foulest 
 and the vilest of all murders, and then think of what that 
 man must feel if he have any heart and any sense of shame 
 left in him. I sicken as I write of it. 
 
 "Does she still meditate that hopeless project the off- 
 spring, poor angel, of her artless, unthinking generosity ? 
 Does she still fancy that it is in her power to assert my in- 
 nocence before the world ? Oh, mother (if she do), use your 
 utmost influence to make her give, up the idea ! Spare her 
 the humiliation, the disappointment, the insult, perhaps, to 
 which she may innocently expose herself. For her sake, for 
 my sake, leave no means untried to attain this righteous, 
 this merciful end. 
 
 " I send her no message I dare not do it. Say nothing,
 
 198 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 when you see her, which can recall me to her memory. On 
 the contrary, help her to forget me as soon as possible. The 
 kindest thing I can do the one atonement I can make to 
 her is to drop out of her life." 
 
 With those wretched words it ended. I handed his letter 
 back to his mother in silence. She said but little on her side. 
 
 "If this .doesn't discourage you," she remarked, slowly 
 folding up the letter, " nothing will. Let us leave it there, 
 and say no more." 
 
 I made no answer I was crying behind my veil. My do- 
 mestic prospect looked so dreary ! my unfortunate husband 
 was so hopelessly misguided, so pitiably wrong ! The one 
 chance for both of us, and the one consolation for poor Me, 
 was to hold to my desperate resolution more firmly than 
 ever. If I had wanted any thing to confirm me in this view, 
 and to arm me against the remonstrances of every one of 
 my friends, Eustace's letter would have proved more than suf- 
 ficient to answer the purpose. At least he had not forgotten 
 me ; he thought of me, and he mourned the loss of me every 
 day of his life. That was encouragement enough for the 
 present. " If Ariel calls for me in the pony-chaise to-mor- 
 row," I thought to myself, " with Ariel I go." 
 
 Mrs. Macallan set me down at Benjamin's door. 
 
 I mentioned to her at parting I stood sufficiently in awe 
 of her to put it off till the last moment that Miserrimus 
 Dexter had arranged to send his cousin and his pony-chaise 
 to her residence on the next day ; and I inquired thereupon 
 whether my mother-in-law would permit me to call at her 
 house to wait for the appearance of the cousin, or whether 
 she would prefer sending the chaise on to Benjamin's cot- 
 tage. I fully expected an explosion of anger to follow this 
 bold avowal of my plans for the next day. The old lady 
 agreeably surprised me. She proved that she had really 
 taken a liking to me : she kept her temper. 
 
 " If you persist in going back to Dexter, you certainly shall 
 not go to him from my door," she said. " But I hope you 
 will not persist. I hope you will awake a wiser woman to- 
 moiTOw morning." 
 
 The morning came. A little before noon the arrival of the 
 pony- chaise was announced at the door, and a letter was 
 brought in to me from Mrs. Macallan.
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 199 
 
 " I have no right to control your movements," my mother- 
 in-law wrote. "I send the chaise to Mr. Benjamin's house; 
 and I sincerely trust that you will not take your place in it. 
 I wish I could persuade you, Valeria, how truly I am your 
 friend. I have been thinking about you anxiously in the 
 wakeful hours of the night. How anxiously, you will under- 
 stand when I tell you that I now reproach myself for not hav- 
 ing done more than I did to prevent your unhappy marriage. 
 And yet, what more I could have done I don't really know. 
 My son admitted to me that he was courting you under an 
 assumed name, but he never told me what the name was, or 
 who you were, or where your friends lived. Perhaps I ought 
 to have taken measures to find this out. Perhaps, if I had 
 succeeded, I ought to have interfered and enlightened you, 
 even at the sad sacrifice of making an enemy of my own son. 
 I honestly thought I did my duty in expressing my disap- 
 proval, and in refusing to be present at the marriage. Was 
 I too easily satisfied? It is too late to ask. Why do I 
 trouble you with an old woman's vain misgivings and re- 
 grets? My child, if you come to any harm, I shall feel (in- 
 directly) responsible for it. It is this uneasy state of mind 
 which sets me writing, with nothing to say that can interest 
 you. D.on't go to Dexter ! The fear has been pursuing me 
 all night that your going to Dexter will end badly. Write 
 him an excuse. Valeria! I firmly believe you will repent 
 it if you return to that house." 
 
 Was ever a woman more plainly warned, more carefully 
 advised, than I? And yet warning and advice were both 
 thrown away on me. 
 
 Let me say for myself that I was really touched by the 
 kindness of my mother-in-law's letter, though I was not 
 shaken by it in the smallest degree. As long as I lived, 
 moved, and thought, my one purpose now was to make Mi- 
 serrimus Dexter confide to me his ideas on the subject of 
 Mrs. Eustace Macallan's death. To those ideas I looked as 
 my guiding stars along the dark way on which I was going. 
 I wrote back to Mrs. Macallan, as I really felt, gratefully and 
 penitently. And then I went out to the chaise.
 
 200 THE LAW AND TIIE LADY. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 ME. DEXTEK AT HOME. 
 
 I FOUND all the idle boys in the neighborhood collected 
 around the pony-chaise, expressing, in the occult language of 
 slang, their high enjoyment and appreciation at the appear- 
 ance of "Ariel" in her man's jacket and hat. The pony was 
 fidgety he felt the influence of the popular uproar. His 
 driver sat, whip in hand, magnificently impenetrable to the 
 gibes and jests that were flying around her. I said " Good- 
 morning" on getting into the chaise. Ariel only said "Gee 
 up !" and started the pony. 
 
 I made up my mind to perform the journey to the distant 
 northern suburb in silence. It was evidently useless for me 
 to attempt to speak, and experience informed me that I need 
 not expect to hear a word fall from the lips of my companion. 
 Experience, however, is not always infallible. After driving 
 for half an hour in stolid silence, Ariel astounded me by sud- 
 denly bursting into speech. 
 
 "Do you know what we are coming to?" she asked, keep- 
 ing her eyes straight between the pony's ears. 
 
 "No," I answered. "I don't know the road. What are 
 we coming to ?" 
 
 " We are coming to a canal." 
 
 " Well?" 
 
 "Well, I have half a mind to upset you in the canal." 
 
 This formidable announcement appeared to require some 
 explanation. I took the liberty of asking for it. 
 
 " Why should you upset me ?" I inquired. 
 
 "Because I hate you," was the cool and candid reply. 
 
 " What have I done to offend you ?" I asked next. 
 
 "What do you want with the Master?" Ariel asked, in 
 her turn. 
 
 "Do you mean Mr. Dexter?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "I want to have some talk with Mr. Dexter." 
 
 "You don't ! You want to take my place. You want to 
 brush his hair and oil his beard, instead of me. You wretch !"
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 201 
 
 I now began to understand. The idea which Miserrimus 
 Dexter had jestingly put into her head, in exhibiting her to 
 ns on the previous night, had been ripening slowly in that 
 dull brain, and had found its way outward into words, about 
 fifteen hours afterward, under the irritating influence of my 
 presence ! 
 
 "I don't want to touch his hair or his beard," I said. "I 
 leave that entirely to you." 
 
 She looked around at me, her fat face flushing, her dull eyes 
 dilating, with the unaccustomed effort to express herself in 
 speech, and to understand what was said to her in return. 
 
 " Say that again," she burst out. " And say it slower this 
 time." 
 
 I said it again, and I said it slower. 
 
 " Swear it !" she cried, getting more and more excited. 
 
 I preserved my gravity (the canal was just visible in the 
 distance), and swore it. 
 
 "Are you satisfied now ?" I asked. 
 
 There was no answer. Her last resources of speech were 
 exhausted. The strange creature looked back again straight 
 between the pony's ears, emitted hoarsely a grunt of relief, 
 and never more looked at me, never more spoke to me, for 
 the rest of the journey. We drove past the banks of the 
 canal, and I escaped immersion. We rattled, in our jingling 
 little vehicle, through the streets and across the waste patch- 
 es of ground, which I dimly remembered in the darkness, and 
 which looked more squalid and more hideous than ever in 
 the broad daylight. The chaise turned down a lane, too 
 narrow for the passage of any larger vehicle, and stopped at 
 a wall and a gate that were new objects to me. Opening 
 the gate with her key, and leading the pony, Ariel introduced 
 me to the back garden and yard of Miserrimus Dextcr's rot- 
 ten and rambling old house. The pony walked off inde- 
 pendently to his stable, with the chaise behind him. My si- 
 lent companion led me through a bleak and barren kitchen, 
 and along a stone passage. Opening a door at the end, she 
 admitted me to the back of the hall, into which Mrs. Macal- 
 lan and I had -penetrated by the front entrance to the house. 
 Here Ariel lifted a whistle which hung around her neck, and 
 blew the shrill trilling notes with the sound of which I was 
 already familiar as the means of communication between 
 MisiM-rimiis Dexter and his slave. The whistling over, the
 
 202 ^Z"2 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 slave's unwilling lips struggled into speech for the last 
 time. 
 
 " Wait till you hear the Master's whistle," she said ; " then 
 go up-stairs." 
 
 So ! I was to be whistled for like a dog ! And, worse still, 
 there was no help for it but to submit like a dog. Had 
 Ariel any excuses to make ? Nothing of the sort. 
 
 She turned her shapeless back on me and vanished into 
 the kitchen region of the house. 
 
 After waiting for a minute or two, and hearing no signal 
 from the floor above, I advanced into the broader and brighter 
 part of the hall, to look by daylight at the pictures which I 
 had only imperfectly discovered in the darkness of the night. 
 A painted inscription in many colors, just under the cornice 
 of the ceiling, informed me that the works on the walls were 
 the production of the all-accomplished Dexter himself. Not 
 satisfied with being poet and composer, he was painter as 
 well. On one wall the subjects were described as "Illustra- 
 tions of the Passions ;" on the other, as "Episodes in the Life 
 of the Wandering Jew." Chance speculators like myself 
 were gravely warned, by means of the inscription, to view 
 the pictures as efforts of pure imagination. " Persons who 
 look for mere Nature in works of Art" (the inscription an- 
 nounced), "are persons to whom Mr. Dexter does not address 
 himself with the brush. He relies entirely on his imagina- 
 tion. Nature puts him out." 
 
 Taking due care to dismiss all ideas of 'Nature from my 
 mind, to begin with, I looked at the pictures which repre- 
 sented the Passions first. 
 
 Little. as I knew critically of Art, I could see that Miser- 
 rimus Dexter knew still less of the rules of drawing, color, 
 and composition. His pictures were, in the strictest mean- 
 ing of that expressive word, Daubs. The diseased and riot- 
 ous delight of the painter in representing Horrors was (with 
 certain exceptions to be hereafter mentioned) the one re- 
 markable quality that I could discover in the series of his 
 works. 
 
 ("The first of the Passion pictures illustrated Revenge. A 
 corpse, in fancy costume, lay on the bank of a foaming river, 
 under the shade of a giant tree. An infuriated man, also in 
 fancy costume, stood astride over the dead body, with his 
 sword lifted to the lowering sky, and watched, with a horrid
 
 TIIK LAW AND THE I. ADV. 20U 
 
 expression of delight, the blood of the man whom lie had 
 just killed dripping slowly in a procession of big red drops 
 down the broad blade of his weapon. The next picture il- 
 lustrated Cruelty, in many compartments. In one I saw a 
 disemboweled horse savagely spurred on by his rider at a 
 bull-fight. In another, an aged philosopher was dissecting a 
 living cat, and gloating over his work. In a third, two pa- 
 gans politely congratulated each other on the torture of two 
 saints : one saint was roasting on a gridiron ; the other, 
 hung up to a tree by his heels, had been just skinned, and 
 was not quite dead yet. Feeling no great desire, after these 
 specimens, to look at any more of the illustrated Passions, I 
 turned to the opposite wall to be instructed in the career of 
 the Wandering Jew. jHere a second inscription informed 
 me that the painter considered the Flying Dutchman to be 
 no other than the Wandering Jew, pursuing his interminable 
 journey by sea. The marine adventures of this mysterious 
 personage were the adventures chosen for representation by 
 Dexter's brush. The first picture showed me a harbor on a 
 rocky coast. A vessel was at anchor, with the helmsman 
 singing on the deck. The sea in the oiling was black and 
 rolling; thunder- clouds lay low on the horizon, split by 
 broad flashes of lightning. In the glare of the lightning, 
 heaving and pitching, appeared the misty form of the Phan- 
 tom Ship approaching the shore. In- this work, badly as it 
 was painted, there were really signs of a powerful imagina- 
 tion, and even of a poetical feeling for the supernatural. 
 The next picture showed the Phantom Ship, moored (to the 
 horror and astonishment of the helmsman) behind the earth- 
 ly vessel in the harbor. The Jew had stepped on shore. 
 His boat was on the beach. His crew little men with 
 stony, white faces, dressed in funereal black sat in silent 
 rows on the seats of the boat, with their oars in their lean, 
 long hands. The Jew, also in black, stood with his eyes and 
 hands raised imploringly to the thunderous heaven. The 
 wild creatures of land and sea the tiger, the rhinoceros, the 
 crocodile, the sea-serpent, the shark, and the devil-fish sur- 
 rounded the accursed Wanderer in a mystic circle, daunted 
 and fascinated at the sight of him. The lightning was gone. 
 The sky and sea had darkened to a great black blank. A 
 faint and lurid light lit the scene, falling downward from a 
 torch, brandished by an avenging Spirit that hovered over
 
 204 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 the Jew on outspread vulture wings. Wild as the picture 
 might be in its conception, there was a suggestive power in 
 it which I confess strongly impressed me. The mysterious 
 silence in the house, and my strange position at the moment, 
 no doubt had their effect on my mind. While I was still 
 looking at the ghastly composition before me, the shrill trill- 
 ing sound of the whistle up-stairs burst on the stillness. 
 jFor the moment my nerves were so completely upset that I 
 started with a cry of alarm. I felt a momentary impulse to 
 open the door and run out. The idea of trusting myself 
 alone with the man who had painted those frightful pictures 
 actually terrified me; I was obliged to sit down on one of 
 the hall chairs. Some minutes passed before my mind re- 
 covered its balance, and I began to feel like my own ordinary 
 self again. The whistle sounded impatiently for the second 
 time. I rose and ascended the broad flight of stairs which 
 led to the first story. To draw back at the point which I 
 had now reached would have utterly degraded me in my own 
 estimation. Still, my heart did certainly beat faster than 
 usual as I approached the door of the circular anteroom; 
 and I honestly acknowledge that I saw my own imprudence, 
 just then, in a singularly vivid light. 
 
 There was a glass over the mantel-piece in the anteroom. 
 I lingered for a moment (nervous as I was) to see how I 
 looked in the glass. 
 
 The hanging tapestry over the inner door had been left 
 partially drawn aside. Softly as I moved, the dog's ears of 
 Miserrimus Dexter caught the sound of rny dress on the 
 floor. The fine tenor voice, which I had last heard singing, 
 called to me softly. 
 
 "Is that Mrs. Valeria ? Please don't wait there. Come 
 in!" 
 
 I entered the inner room. 
 
 The wheeled chair advanced to meet me, so slowly and so 
 softly that I hardly knew it again. Miserrimus Dexter lan- 
 guidly held out his hand. His head inclined pensively to 
 one side ; his large blue eyes looked at me piteously. Not 
 a vestige seemed to be left of the raging, shouting creature 
 of my first visit, who was Napoleon at one moment, and 
 Shakespeare at another. Mr. Dexter of the morning was 
 a mild, thoughtful, melancholy man, who only recalled Mr. 
 Dexter of the night by the inveterate oddity of his dress.
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 205 
 
 His jacket, on this occasion, was of pink quilted silk. The 
 coverlet which hid his deformity matched the jacket in pale 
 sea-green satin ; and, to complete these strange vagaries of 
 costume, his wrists were actually adorned with massive 
 bracelets of gold, formed on the severely simple 'models 
 which have descended to us from ancient times. 
 
 " How good of you to cheer and charm me by coming 
 here !" he said, in his most mournful and most musical tones. 
 "I have dressed, expressly to receive you, in the prettiest 
 clothes I have. Don't be surprised. Except in this ignoble 
 and material nineteenth century, men have always worn 
 precious stuffs and beautiful colors as well as women. A 
 hundred years ago a gentleman in pink silk was a gentleman 
 properly dressed. Fifteen hundred years ago the patricians 
 of the classic times wore bracelets exactly like mine. I de- 
 spise the brutish contempt for beauty and the mean dread of 
 expense which degrade a gentleman's costume to black cloth, 
 and limit a gentleman's ornaments to a. finger-ring, in the 
 age I live in. I like to be bright and beautiful, especially 
 when brightness and beauty come to see me. You don't 
 know how precious your society is to me. This is one of my 
 melancholy days. Tears rise unbidden to my eyes. I sigh 
 and sorrow over myself; I languish for pity. Just think of 
 what I am ! A poor solitary creature, cursed with a fright- 
 ful deformity. How pitiable ! how dreadful ! My affection- 
 ate heart wasted. My extraordinary talents useless or 
 misapplied. Sad ! sad ! sad ! Please pity me." 
 
 His eyes were positively tilled with tears tears of compas- 
 sion for himself! He looked at me and spoke to me with 
 the wailing, querulous entreaty of a sick child wanting to be 
 nursed. I was utterly at a loss what to do. It was perfect- 
 ly ridiculous but I was never more embarrassed in my life. 
 
 "Please pity me !" he repeated. "Don't be cruel. I only 
 ask a little thing. Pretty Mrs. Valeria, say you pity me !" 
 
 I said I pitied him and I felt that I blushed as I did it. 
 
 "Thank you," said Miserrirnua Dexter, humbly. "It docs 
 me good. Go a little farther. Pat my hand." 
 
 I tried to restrain myself; but the sense of the absurdity 
 of this last petition (quite gravely addressed to me, remem- 
 ber !) was too strong to be controlled. I burst out laughing. 
 
 Miserrimus Dexter looked at me with a blank astonish- 
 ment which only increased my merriment. Had I oil ended
 
 20G THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 him ? Apparently not. Recovering from his astonishment, 
 he laid his head luxuriously on the back of his chair, with 
 the expression of a man who was listening critically to a per- 
 formance of some sort. When I had quite exhausted myself, 
 he raised his head, and clapped his shapely white hands, and 
 honored me with an " encore." 
 
 "Do it again," he said, still in the same childish way. 
 " Merry Mrs. Valeria, you have a musical laugh I have a 
 musical ear. Do it again." 
 
 I was serious enough by this time. "I am ashamed of 
 myself, Mr. Dexter," I said. " Pray forgive me." 
 
 He made no answer to this ; I doubt if he heard me. His 
 variable temper appeared to be in course of undergoing some 
 new change. He sat looking at my dress (as I supposed) 
 with a steady and anxious attention, gravely forming his 
 own conclusions, steadfastly pursuing his own train of 
 thought. 
 
 "Mrs. Valeria," he burst out, suddenly, " you are not com- 
 fortable in that chair." 
 
 " Pardon me," I replied ; " I am quite comfortable." 
 
 "Pardon me," he rejoined. "There is a chair of Indian 
 basket-work at that end of the room which is much better 
 suited to you. Will you accept my apologies if I am rude 
 enough to allow you to fetch it for yourself? I have a rea- 
 son." 
 
 He had a reason ! What new piece of eccentricity was he 
 about to exhibit ? I rose and fetched the chair. It was light 
 enough to be quite easily carried. As I returned to him, 
 I noticed that his eyes were strangely employed in what 
 seemed to be the closest scrutiny of my dress. And, stranger 
 still, the result of this appeared to be partly to interest and 
 partly to distress him. 
 
 I placed the chair near him, and was about to take my seat 
 in it, when he sent me back again, on another errand, to the 
 end of the room. 
 
 "Oblige me indescribably," he said. "There is a hand- 
 screen hanging on the wall, which matches the chair. We 
 are rather near the fire here. You may find the screen useful. 
 Once more forgive me for letting you fetch it for yourself. 
 Once more let me assure yon that I have a reason." 
 
 Here was his "reason," reiterated, emphatically reiterated, 
 for the second time ! Curiosity made me as completely the
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 207 
 
 obedient servant of his caprices as Ariel herself. I fetched 
 the hand-screen. Returning with it, I met his eyes still fixed 
 with the same incomprehensible attention on my perfectly 
 plain and unpretending dress, and still expressing the same 
 curious mixture of interest and regret. 
 
 " Thank you a thousand times," he said. " You have (quite 
 innocently) wrung my heart. But you have not the less 
 done ine an inestimable kindness. Will you promise not to 
 be offended with me if I confess the truth ?" 
 
 He was approaching his explanation ! I never gave a 
 promise more readily in my life. 
 
 "I have rudely allowed you to fetch your chair and your 
 screen for yourself," he went on. "My motive will seem a 
 very strange one, I am afraid. Did you observe that I no- 
 ticed you very attentively too attentively, perhaps?" 
 
 "Yes," I said. "I thought you were noticing my dress." 
 
 He shook his head, and sighed bitterly. 
 
 "Not your dress," lie said; "and not your face. Your 
 dress is dark. Your face is still strange to me. Dear Mrs. 
 Valeria, I wanted to see you walk." 
 
 To see me walk ! What did he mean ? Where was that 
 erratic mind of his wandering to now ? 
 
 "You have a rare accomplishment for an Englishwoman," 
 lie resumed " you walk well. She walked well. I couldn't 
 resist the temptation of seeing her again, in seeing you. It 
 was her movement, her sweet, simple, unsought grace (not 
 yours), when you walked to the end of the room and re- 
 turned to me. You raised her from the dead when you 
 fetched the chair and the screen. Pardo'n me for making 
 use of you : the idea was innocent, the motive was sacred. 
 You have distressed and delighted me. My heart bleeds 
 and thanks you." 
 
 He paused for a moment; he let his head droop on his- 
 breast, then suddenly raised it again. 
 
 " Surely we were talking about her last night ?" he said. 
 "What did I say? what did you say? My memory is con- 
 fused ; I half remember, half forget. Please remind me. 
 You're not offended with me are you?" 
 
 I might have been offended with another man. Not with 
 him. I was far too anxious to find my way into his confidence 
 now that he had touched of his own accord on the subject of 
 Eustace's first wife to be offended with Miserriinus Dexter.
 
 208 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 "We were speaking," I answered, "of Mrs. Eustace Macal- 
 lan's death, and we were saying to one another " 
 
 He interrupted me, leaning forward eagerly in his chair. 
 
 "Yes! yes!" he exclaimed. "And I was wondering what 
 interest you could have in penetrating the mystery of her 
 death. Tell me ! Confide in me ! I am dying to know !" 
 
 " Not even you have a stronger interest in that subject 
 than the interest that I feel," I said. " The happiness of my 
 whole life to come depends on my clearing up the mystery." 
 
 "Good God why?" he cried. "Stop! I am exciting 
 myself. I mustn't do that. I must have all my wits about 
 me; I mustn't wander. The thing is too serious. Wait a 
 minute !" 
 
 An elegant little basket was hooked on to one of the arms 
 of his chair. He opened it, and drew out a strip of embroid- 
 ery partially finished, with the necessary materials for work- 
 ing, all complete. We looked at each other across the cm- 
 broidery. He noticed my surprise. 
 
 " Women," he said, " wisely compose their minds, and help 
 themselves to think quietly, by doing needle-work. Why 
 are men such fools as to deny themselves the same admirable 
 resource the simple and soothing occupation which keeps 
 the nerves steady and leaves the mind calm and free ? As a 
 man, I follow the women's wise example. Mrs. Valeria, per- 
 mit me to compose myself." 
 
 Gravely arranging his embroidery, this extraordinary be- 
 ing began to work with the patient and nimble dexterity of 
 an accomplished needle-woman. 
 
 " Now," said Mlserrimus Dexter, " if you are ready, I am. 
 You talk I work. Please begin." 
 
 I obeyed him, and began. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 IX THE DARK. 
 
 WITH such a man as Miserrimus Dexter, and with such a 
 purpose as I had in view, no half-confidences were possible. 
 I must either risk the most unreserved acknowledgment of 
 the interests that I really had at stake, or I must make the 
 best excuse that occurred to me for abandoning my contcm-
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 200 
 
 plated experiment at the last moment. In my present crit- 
 ical situation, no such refuge as a middle course lay before 
 me even if I had been inclined to take it. As things were, 
 I ran all risks, and plunged headlong into my o\vn affairs at 
 starting. 
 
 " Thus far, you know little or nothing about me, Mr. Dex- 
 ter," I said. " You are, as I believe, quite unaware that my 
 husband and I are not living together at the present time." 
 
 " Is it necessary to mention your husband ?" he asked, cold- 
 ly, without looking up from his embroidery, and without 
 pausing in his work. 
 
 "It is absolutely necessary," I answered. "I can explain 
 myself to you in no other way." 
 
 He bent his head, and sighed resignedly. 
 
 "You and your husband are not living together at the 
 present time," he resumed. "Docs that mean that Eustace 
 lias left you ?" 
 
 "He has left me, and has gone abroad." 
 
 "Without any necessity for it?" 
 
 " Without the least necessity." 
 
 "lias he appointed no time for his return to you?" 
 
 "If he persevere in his present resolution, Mr. Dexter, 
 Eustace will never return to me." 
 
 For the first time he raised his head from his embroidery 
 with a sudden appearance of interest. 
 
 " Is the quarrel so serious as that ?" he asked. " Are you 
 free of each other, pretty Mrs. Valeria, by common consent 
 of both parties ?" 
 
 The tone in which he put the question was not at all to 
 my liking. The look he fixed on me was a look which un- 
 pleasantly suggested that I had trusted myself alone with 
 him, and that he might end in taking advantage of it. I re- 
 minded him quietly, by my manner more than by my words, 
 of the respect which he owed to me. 
 
 "You are entirely mistaken," I said. "There is no anger 
 there is not even a misunderstanding between us. Our 
 parting lias cost bitter sorrow, Mr. Dexter, to him and to 
 me." 
 
 lie submitted to be set right with ironical resignation. 
 "I am all attention," he said, threading his needle. "Pray 
 go on; I won't interrupt you again." Acting on this in- 
 vitation, I told him the truth about my husband and myself
 
 210 TIIE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 quite unreservedly, taking care however, at the same time, to 
 put Eustace's motives in the best light that they would bear. 
 Miserrimus Dexter dropped his embroidery on his lap, and 
 laughed softly to himself, with an impish enjoyment of my 
 poor little narrative, which set every nerve in me on edge as 
 I looked at him. 
 
 " I see nothing to laugh at," I said, sharply. 
 
 His beautiful blue eyes rested on me with a look of inno- 
 cent surprise. 
 
 " Nothing to laugh at," he repeated, " in such an exhibition 
 of human folly as you have just described ?" His expression 
 suddenly changed ; his face darkened and hardened very 
 strangely. " Stop !" he cried, before I could answer him. 
 "There can be only one reason for you're taking it as seri- 
 ously as you do. Mrs. Valeria ! you are fond of your hus- 
 band." 
 
 " Fond of him isn't strong enough to express it," I retort- 
 ed. " I love him with my whole heart." 
 
 Miserrimus Dexter stroked his magnificent beard, and con- 
 templatively repeated my words. " You love him. with your 
 whole heart ? Do you know why ?" 
 
 "Because I can't help it," I answered, doggedly. 
 
 He smiled satirically, and went on with his embroidery. 
 " Curious !" he said to himself; " Eustace's first wife loved 
 him too. There are some men whom the women all like, and 
 there are other men whom the women never care for. With- 
 out the least reason for it in either case. The one man is just 
 as good as the other; just as handsome, as agreeable, as 
 honorable, and as high in rank as the other. And yet for 
 Number One they will go through fire and water, and for 
 Number Two they won't so much as turn their heads to look 
 at him. Why? They don't know themselves as Mrs. Va- 
 leria has just said! Is there a physical reason for it? Is 
 there some potent magnetic emanation from Number One 
 which Number Two doesn't possess? I must investigate this 
 when I have the time, and when I find myself in the humor." 
 Having so far settled the question to his own entire satisfac- 
 tion, he looked up at me again. " I am still in the dark about 
 you and your motives," he said. " I am still as far as ever 
 from understanding what your interest is in investigating 
 that hideous tragedy at Gleninch. Clever Mrs. Valeria, 
 please take me by the hand, and lead me into the light.
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 211 
 
 You're not offended with me are you ? Make it up ; and I 
 will give you this pretty piece of embroidery when I have 
 done it. I am only a poor, solitary, deformed wretch, with 
 a quaint turn of mind ; I mean no harm. Forgive me ! in- 
 dulge me ! enlighten me !" 
 
 lie resumed his childish ways ; he recovered his innocent 
 smile, with the odd little puckers and wrinkles accompanying 
 it at the corners of his eyes. I began to doubt whether L 
 might not have been unreasonably hard on him. I penitent- 
 ly resolved to be more considerate toward his infirmities of 
 mind and body during the remainder of my visit. 
 
 " Let me go back for a moment, Mr. Dexter, to past times 
 at Gleninch," I said. " You agree with me in believing Eus- 
 tace to be absolutely innocent of the crime for which he was 
 tried. Your evidence at the Trial tells me that." 
 
 He paused over his work, and looked at me with a grave 
 and stern attention which presented his face in quite a new 
 light. 
 
 "That is our opinion," I resumed. "But it was not the 
 opinion of the Jury. Their verdict, you remember, was Not 
 Proven. In plain English, the Jury who tried my husband 
 declined to express their opinion, positively and publicly, 
 that he was innocent. Am I right ?" 
 
 Instead of answering, he suddenly put his embroidery back 
 in the basket, and moved the machinery of his chair, so as to 
 bring it close by mine. 
 
 " Who told you this ?" he asked. 
 
 " I found it for myself in a book." 
 
 Thus far his face had expressed steady attention and no 
 more. Now, for the first time, I thought I saw something 
 darkly passing over him which betrayed itself to my mind 
 as rising distrust. 
 
 "Ladies are not generally in the habit of troubling their 
 heads about dry questions of law," he said. " Mrs. Eustace 
 Macallan the Second, you must have some very powerful 
 motive for turning your studies that way." 
 
 " I have a very powerful motive, Mr. Dexter. My husband 
 is resigned to the Scotch Verdict. His mother is resigned 
 to it. His friends (so far as I know) arc resigned to it " 
 
 " Well ?" 
 
 " Well ! I don't agree with my husband, or his mother, or 
 his friends. I refuse to submit to the Scotch Verdict." 
 K
 
 212 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 The instant I said those words, the madness in him which 
 I had hitherto denied, seemed to break out. He suddenly 
 stretched himself over his chair: he pounced on me, with a 
 hand on each of my shoulders ; his wild eyes questioned me 
 fiercely, frantically, within a few inches of my face. 
 
 " What do you mean ?" he shouted, at the utmost pitch 
 of his ringing and resonant voice. 
 
 A deadly fear of him shook me. I did my best to hide 
 the outward betrayal of it. By look and word, I showed 
 him, as firmly as I could, that I resented the liberty he had 
 taken with me. 
 
 " Remove your hands, sir," I said, " and retire to your 
 proper place." 
 
 He obeyed me mechanically. He apologized to me me- 
 chanically. His whole mind was evidently still filled with 
 the words that I had spoken to him, and still bent on dis- 
 covering what those words meant. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," he said ; " I humbly beg your par- 
 don. The subject excites me, frightens rne, maddens me. 
 You don't know what a difficulty I have in controlling 
 myself. Never mind. Don't take me seriously. Don't be 
 frightened at me. I am so ashamed of myself I feel so 
 small and so miserable at having offended you. Make me 
 suffer for it. Take a stick and beat me. Tie me down in 
 my chair. Call up Ariel, who is as strong as a horse, and 
 tell her to hold me. Dear Mrs. Valeria ! Injured Mrs. Va- 
 leria ! I'll endure any thing in the way of punishment, if 
 you will only tell me what you mean by not submitting to 
 the Scotch Verdict." He backed his chair penitently as he 
 made that entreaty. "Am I .far enough away yet?" he 
 asked, with a rueful look. "Do I still frighten you? I'll 
 drop out of sight, if you prefer it, in the bottom of the chair." 
 
 He lifted the sea-green coverlet. In another moment he 
 would have disappeared like a puppet in a show if I had not 
 stopped him. 
 
 " Say nothing more, and do nothing more ; I accept your 
 apologies," I said. " When I tell you that I refuse to sub- 
 mit to the opinion of the Scotch Jury, I mean exactly what 
 my words express. That verdict has left a stain on my hus- 
 band's character. He feels the stain bitterly. How^ bitter- 
 ly no one knows so well as I do. His sense of his degrada- 
 tion is the sense that has parted him from me. It is not
 
 THE LAW AND TUE LADY. 213 
 
 enough for him that I am persuaded of his innocence. Noth- 
 ing will bring him back to me nothing will persuade Eus- 
 tace that I think him worthy to be the guide and companion 
 of my life but the proof of his innocence, set before the 
 Jury which doubts it, and the public which doubts it, to this 
 day. He and his friends and his lawyers all despair of ever 
 finding that proof now. But I am his wife ; and none of 
 you love him as I love him. I alone refuse to despair; I 
 alone refuse to listen to reason. If God spare me, Mr. Dex- 
 ter, I dedicate my life to the vindication of my husband's in- 
 nocence.. You are hie old friend I am here to ask you to 
 help me." 
 
 It appeared to be now my turn to frighten him. The 
 color left his face. He passed his hand restlessly over his 
 forehead, as if he were trying to brush some delusion out of 
 his brain. 
 
 " Is this one of my dreams ?" he asked, faintly. "Are you 
 a Vision of the night ?" 
 
 " I am only a friendless woman," I said, " who has lost all 
 that she loved and prized, and who is trying to win it back 
 again." 
 
 He began to move his chair nearer to me once more. I 
 lifted my hand. He stopped the chair directly. There was 
 a moment of silence. We sat watching one another. I saw 
 his hands tremble as he laid them on the coverlet ; I saw his 
 face grow paler and paler, and his under- lip drop. What 
 dead and buried remembrances had I brought to life in him, 
 in all their olden horror ? 
 
 He was the first to speak again. 
 
 " So this is your interest," he said, " in clearing up the 
 mystery of Mrs. Eustace Macallan's death ?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " And you believe that I can help you ?" 
 
 " I do." 
 
 He slowly lifted one of his hands, and pointed at me with 
 his long forefinger. 
 
 " You suspect somebody," he said. 
 
 The tone in which he spoke was low and threatening; it 
 warned me to be careful. At the same time, if I now shut 
 him out .of my confidence, I should lose the reward that 
 might yef be to come, for all that I had suffered and risked 
 at that perilous interview.
 
 214 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 " You suspect somebody," he repeated. 
 
 " Perhaps !" was all that I said in return. 
 
 " Is the person within your reach ?" 
 
 " Not yet." 
 
 " Do you know where the person is ?" 
 
 " No." 
 
 He laid his head languidly on the back of his chair, with 
 a trembling long-drawn sigh. Was he disappointed ? Or 
 was he relieved ? Or was he simply exhausted in mind and 
 body alike ? Who could fathom him ? Who could say ? 
 
 " Will you give me five minutes ?" he asked, feebly and 
 wearily, without raising his head. " You know already how 
 any reference to events at Gleninch excites and shakes me. 
 I shall be fit for it again, if you will kindly give me a few 
 minutes to myself. There are books in the next room. Please 
 excuse me." 
 
 I at once retired to the circular antechamber. He fol- 
 lowed me in his chair, and closed the door between us. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 IN THE LIGHT. 
 
 A LITTLE interval of solitude was a relief to me, as well as 
 to Miserrimus Dexter. 
 
 Startling doubts beset me as I walked restlessly backward 
 and forward, now in the anteroom, and now in the corridor 
 outside* It was plain that I had (quite innocently) disturb- 
 ed the repose of some formidable secrets in Miserrimus Dex- 
 ter's mind. I confused and wearied my poor brains in try- 
 ing to guess what the secrets might be. All my ingenuity 
 as after-events showed me was wasted on speculations 
 not one of which even approached the truth. I was on surer 
 ground when I arrived at the conclusion that Dexter had 
 really kept every mortal creature out of his confidence. He 
 could never have betrayed such serious signs of disturbance 
 as I 'had noticed in him, if he had publicly acknowledged at 
 the Trial, or if he had privately communicated to any chos- 
 en friend, all that he knew of the tragic and terrible drama 
 acted in the bedchamber at Gleninch. What powerful influ- 
 ence had induced him to close his lips? Had he been silent
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 210 
 
 in mercy to others ? or in dread of consequences to himself? 
 Impossible to tell ! Could I hope that he would confide to 
 Me what he had kept secret from Justice and Friendship 
 alike ? When he knew what I really wanted of him, would 
 he arm me, out of his own stores of knowledge, with the 
 weapon that would win me victory in the struggle to come ? 
 The chances were all against it there was no denying that. 
 Still the end was worth trying for. The caprice of the mo- 
 ment might yet stand my friend, with such a wayward being 
 as Miserrinius Dexter. My plans and projects were sufficient- 
 ly strange, sufficiently wide of the ordinary limits of a wom- 
 an's thoughts and actions, to attract his sympathies. " Who 
 knows," I thought to myself, " if I may not take his confi- 
 dence by surprise, by simply telling him the truth?" 
 
 The interval expired; the door was thrown open; the voice 
 of my host summoned me again to the inner room. 
 
 " Welcome back !" said Miserrimus Dexter. " Dear Mrs. 
 Valeria, I am quite mysetf again. How are you ?" 
 
 He looked and spoke with the easy cordiality of an old 
 friend. During the period of my absence, short as it was, 
 another change had passed over this most multiform of liv- 
 ing beings. His eyes sparkled with good-humor ; his cheeks 
 were flushing under a new excitement of some sort. Even 
 his dress had undergone alteration since I had seen it last. 
 He now wore an extemporized cap of white paper ; his ruf- 
 fles were tucked up; a clean apron was thrown over the sea- 
 green coverlet. He backed his chair before me, bowing and 
 smiling, and waved me to a seat with the grace of a dancing 
 master, chastened by the dignity of a lord in waiting. 
 
 " I am going to cook," he announced, with the most en- 
 gaging simplicity. " We both stand in need of refreshment 
 before we return to the serious business of our interview. 
 You see me in my cook's dress ; forgive it. There is a form 
 in these things. I am a great stickler for forms. I have been 
 taking some wine. Please sanction that proceeding by tak- 
 ing some wine too." 
 
 He filled a goblet of ancient Venetian glass with a purple- 
 red liquor, beautiful to see. 
 
 "Burgundy!" he said "the king of wines. And tliis is 
 the king of Burgundies Clos Vougeot. I drink to your 
 health and happiness !" 
 
 He filled a second goblet for himself, and honored the toast
 
 216 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 by draining it to the bottom. I now understood the sparkle 
 in his eyes and the flush in his cheeks. It was my interest 
 not to offend him. I drank a little of his wine, and I quite 
 agreed with him. I thought it delicious. 
 
 " What shall we eat ?" he asked. " It must be something 
 worthy of our Clos Vougeot. Ariel is good at roasting and 
 boiling joints, poor wretch ! but I don't insult your taste by 
 offering you Ariel's cookery. Plain joints !" he exclaimed, 
 with an expression of refined disgust. " Bah ! A man who 
 eats a plain joint is only one remove from a cannibal or a 
 butcher. Will you leave it to me to discover something 
 more worthy of us ? Let us go to the kitchen." 
 
 He wheeled his chair around, and invited me to accompany 
 him with a courteous wave of his hand. 
 
 I followed the chair to some closed curtains at one end of 
 the room, which I had not hitherto noticed. Drawing aside 
 the curtains, he revealed to view an alcove, in which stood a 
 neat little gas-stove for cooking. Drawers and cupboards, 
 plates, dishes, and saucepans, were ranged around the alcove 
 all on a miniature scale, all scrupulously bright and clean. 
 "Welcome to the kitchen!" said Miserrimus Dexter. He 
 drew out of a recess in the wall a marble slab, which served as 
 a table, and reflected profoundly, with his hand to his head. 
 " I have it !" he cried, and opening one of the cupboards next, 
 took from it a black bottle of a form that was new to me. 
 Sounding this bottle with a spike, he pierced and produced 
 to view some little irregularly formed black objects, which 
 might have been familiar enough to a woman accustomed 
 to the luxurious tables of the rich, but which were a new 
 revelation to a person like myself, who nad led a simple 
 country life-in the house of a clergyman with small means. 
 When I saw my host carefully lay out these occult substan- 
 ces of uninviting appearance on a clean napkin, and then 
 plunge once more into profound reflection at the sight of 
 them, my curiosity could be no longer restrained. I vent- 
 ured to say, " What are those things, Mr. Dexter, and are we 
 really going to eat them?" 
 
 He started at the rash question, and looked at me with 
 hands outspread in irrepressible astonishment. 
 
 "Where is our boasted progress?" he cried. "What is 
 education but a name? Here is a cultivated person who 
 doesn't know Truffles when she sees them !"
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 217 
 
 " I have heard of truffles," I answered, humbly, " but I 
 never saw them before. We had no such foreign luxuries as 
 those, Mr. Dexter, at home in the North." 
 
 Miserrimus Dexter lifted one of the truffles tenderly on his 
 spike, and held it up to me in a favorable light. 
 
 "Make the most of one of the few first sensations in this 
 life which has no ingredient of disappointment lurking under 
 the surface," he said. "Look at it ; meditate over it. You 
 shall eat it, Mrs. Valeria, stewed in Burgundy !" 
 
 He lighted the gas for cooking with the air of a man who 
 was about to offer me an inestimable proof of his good-will. 
 
 " Forgive me if I observe the most absolute silence," he 
 said, "dating from the moment when I take this in my hand." 
 He produced a bright little stew-pan from his collection of 
 culinary utensils as he spoke. "Properly pursued, the Art 
 of Cookery allows of no divided attention," he continued, 
 gravely. "In that observation you will find the reason why 
 no woman ever has reached, or ever will reach, the highest 
 distinction as a cook. As a rule, women are incapable of 
 absolutely concentrating their attention on any one occupa- 
 tion for any given time. Their minds will run on something 
 else say, typically, for the sake of illustration, their sweet- 
 heart or their new bonnet. The one obstacle, Mrs. Valeria, 
 to your rising equal to the men in the various industrial 
 processes of life is not raised, as the women vainly suppose, 
 by the defective institutions of the age they live in. No ! 
 the obstacle is in themselves. No institutions that can be de- 
 vised to encourage them will ever be strong enough to con- 
 tend successfully with the sweetheart and the new bonnet. 
 A little while ago, for instance, I was instrumental in getting 
 women employed in our local post-office here. The other 
 day I took the trouble a serious business to me of getting 
 <lo\vn-stairs, and wheeling myself away to the office to sec 
 how they were getting on. I took a letter with me to reg- 
 ister. It had an unusually long address. The registering 
 woman began copying the address on the receipt form, in a 
 business-like manner cheering and delightful to see. Half- 
 way through, a little child-sister of one of the other women 
 employed trotted into the office, and popped under the coun- 
 ter to go and apeak to her relative. The registering wom- 
 an's mind instantly gave way. Her pencil stopped; her 
 eyes wandered off to the child with a channinir expression
 
 218 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 of interest. 'Well, Lucy,' she said, 'how d'ye do?' Then 
 she remembered business again, and returned to her receipt. 
 When I took it across the counter, an important line in the 
 address of my letter was left out in the copy. Thanks to 
 Lucy. Now a man in the same position would not have seen 
 Lucy he would have been too closely occupied with what he 
 was about at the moment. There is the whole difference be- 
 tween the mental constitution of the sexes, which no legisla- 
 tion will ever alter as long as the world lasts ! What does 
 it matter ? Women are infinitely superior to men in the moral 
 qualities which are the true adornments of humanity. Be 
 content oh, my mistaken sisters, be content with that !" 
 
 He twisted his chair around toward the stove. It was use- 
 less to dispute the question with him, even if I had felt in- 
 clined to do so. He absorbed himself in his stew-pan. 
 
 I looked about me in the room. 
 
 The same insatiable relish for horrors exhibited down- 
 stairs by the pictures in the hall was displayed again here. 
 The photographs hanging on the wall represented the vari- 
 ous forms of madness taken from the life. The plaster pasts 
 ranged on the shelf opposite were casts (after death) of the 
 heads of famous murderers. A frightful little skeleton of a 
 woman hung in a cupboard, behind a glazed door, with this 
 cynical inscription placed above the skull : " Behold the scaf- 
 folding on which beauty is built !" In a corresponding cup- 
 board, with the door wide open, there hung in loose folds a 
 "Shirt (as I took it" to be) of chamois leather. Touching it 
 (and finding it to be far softer than any chamois leather that 
 my fingers had ever felt before), I disarranged the folds, and 
 disclosed a ticket pinned among them, describing the thing 
 in these horrid lines : " Skin of a French Marquis, tanned in 
 the Revolution of Ninety-three. Who says the nobility are 
 not good for something? They make good leather." 
 
 After this last specimen of my host's taste in curiosities, 
 I pursued my investigation no farther. I returned to my 
 chair, and waited for the truffles. 
 
 After a brief interval, the voice of the poet-painter-com- 
 poser-and-cook summoned me back to the alcove. 
 
 The gas was out. The stew-pan and its accompaniments 
 had vanished. On the marble slab wei-e two plates, two 
 napkins, two rolls of bread, and a dish, with another napkin 
 in it, on which reposed two quaint little black balls. Mi-
 
 A I-UIGIITITL I.irn.K SKEMCTON OF A WOMAN 111 NO IN A CU1-15UAKU. 
 
 K 2
 
 TUB LAW AND THE LADY. 219 
 
 serritnus Dexter, regarding me with a smile of benevolent 
 interest, put one of the balls on my plate, and took the other 
 himself. " Compose yourself, Mrs. Valeria," he said. " This 
 is an epoch in your life. Your first Truffle ! Don't touch 
 it with the knife. Use the fork alone. And pardon me ; 
 this is most important eat slowly." 
 
 I followed my instructions, and assumed an enthusiasm 
 which I honestly confess I did not feel. I privately thought 
 the new vegetable a great deal too rich, and in other respects 
 quite unworthy of the fuss that had been made about it. 
 Miserrimus Dexter lingered and languished over his truffles, 
 and sipped his wonderful Burgundy, and sang his own 
 praises as a cook until I was really almost mad with impa- 
 tience to return to the real object of my visit. In the reck- 
 less state of mind which this feeling produced, I abruptly 
 reminded my host that lie was wasting our time, by the most 
 dangerous question that I could possibly put to him. 
 
 " Mr. Dexter," I said, " have you seen any thing lately of 
 Mrs. Beauly ?" 
 
 The easy sense of enjoyment expressed in his face left it 
 at those rash words, and went out like a suddenly extin- 
 guished light. That furtive distrust of me which I had al- 
 ready noticed instantly made itself felt again in his manner 
 and in his voice. 
 
 " Do you know Mrs. Beauly ?" he asked. 
 
 "I only know her," I answered, " by what I have read of 
 her in the Trial." 
 
 He was not satisfied with that reply. 
 
 "You must have an interest of some sort in Mrs. Beauly," 
 he said, "or you would not have asked me about her. Is it 
 the interest of a friend, or the interest of an enemy ?" 
 
 Rash as I might be, I was not quite reckless enough yet 
 to meet that plain question by an equally plain reply. I 
 saw enough in his face to warn me to be careful with him 
 before it was too late. 
 
 " I can only answer you in one way," I rejoined. " I must 
 return to a subject which is very painful to you the subject 
 of the Trial." 
 
 " Go on," he said, with one of his grim outbursts of humor. 
 " Here I am at your mercy a martyr at the stake. Poke 
 the fire ! poke the fire !" 
 
 " I am only an ignorant woman," I resumed, " and I dare
 
 220 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 say I am quite wrong ; but there is one part of my husband's 
 trial which doesn't at all satisfy me. The defense set up for 
 him seems to me to have been a complete mistake." 
 
 "A complete mistake ?" he repeated. " Strange language, 
 Mrs. Valeria, to say the least of it !" He tried to speak light- 
 ly ; he took up his goblet of wine ; but I could see that I 
 had produced an efiect on him. His hand trembled as it 
 carried the wine to his lips. 
 
 " I don't doubt that Eustace's first wife really asked him 
 to buy the arsenic," I continued. " I don't doubt that she 
 used it secretly to improve her complexion. But what I do 
 not believe is that she died of an overdose of the poison, 
 taken by mistake." 
 
 He put back the goblet of wine on the table near him so 
 unsteadily that he spilled the greater part of it. For a mo- 
 ment his eyes met mine, then looked down again. 
 
 "How do you believe she died ?" he inquired, in tones so 
 low that I could barely hear them. 
 
 " By the hand of a poisoner," I answered. 
 
 He made a movement as if he were about to start up in the 
 chair, and sank back again, seized, apparently, with a sudden 
 faintness. 
 
 " Not my husband !" I hastened to add. " You know that 
 I am satisfied of his innocence." 
 
 I saw him shudder. I saw his hands fasten their hold 
 convulsively on the arms of his chair. 
 
 " W'ho poisoned her ?" he asked, still lying helplessly back 
 in the chair. 
 
 At the critical moment my courage failed me. I was 
 afraid to tell him in what direction rny suspicions pointed. 
 
 " Can't you guess ?" I said. 
 
 There was a pause. I supposed him to be secretly follow- 
 ing his own train of thought. It was not. for long. On a sud- 
 den he started up in his chair. The prostration which had 
 possessed him appeared to vanish in an instant. His eyes 
 recovered their wild light ; his hands were steady again ; his 
 color was brighter than ever. Had he been pondering over 
 the secret of my interest in Mrs. Beauly ? and had he guess- 
 ed? He had! 
 
 " Answer on your word of honor !" he cried. " Don't at- 
 tempt to deceive me ! Is it a woman ?" 
 
 " It is."
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 221 
 
 " What is the first letter of her name ? Is it one of the 
 first three letters of the alphabet ?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " B ?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 Beauly ?" 
 
 " Beauly." 
 
 He threw his hands up above his head, and burst into a 
 frantic fit of laughter. 
 
 " I have lived long enough !" he broke out, wildly. " At 
 last I have discovered one other person in the world who 
 sees it as plainly as I do. Cruel Mrs. Valeria ! why did you 
 torture me ? Why didn't you own it before ?" 
 
 "What!" I exclaimed, catching the infection of his excite- 
 ment.. "Are your ideas my ideas? Is it possible that you 
 suspect Mrs. Beauly too ?" 
 
 He made this remarkable reply : 
 
 " Suspect ?" he repeated, contemptuously. " There isn't 
 the shadow of a doubt about it. Mrs. Beauly poisoned her." 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 THE INDICTMENT OF MRS. BEAULY. 
 
 I STARTED to my feet, and looked at Miserriraus Dexter. 
 I was too much agitated to be able to speak to him. 
 
 My utmost expectations had not prepared me for the tone 
 of absolute conviction in which he had spoken. At the best, 
 I had anticipated that he might, by the barest chance, agree 
 with me in suspecting Mrs. Beauly. And now his own lips 
 had said it, without hesitation or reserve ! "There isn't the 
 shadow of a doubt : Mrs. Beauly poisoned her." 
 
 "Sit down," he said, quietly. "There's nothing to be 
 afraid of. Nobody can hear us in this room." 
 
 I sat down again, and recovered myself a little. 
 
 " Have you never told any one else what you have just 
 told me ?" was the first question that I put to him. 
 
 " Never. No one else suspected her." 
 
 " Not even the lawyers ?" 
 
 " Not even the lawyers. There is no legal evidence against 
 Mrs. Beauly. There is nothing but moral certainty."
 
 222 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 " Surely you might have found the evidence, if you had 
 tried?" 
 
 He laughed at the idea. 
 
 "Look at me !" he said. "How is a man to hunt up evi- 
 dence who is tied to this chair ? Besides, there were other 
 difficulties in my way. I am not generally in the habit of 
 needlessly betraying myself I am a cautious man, though 
 you may not have noticed it. But my immeasurable hatred 
 of Mrs. Beauly was not to be concealed. If eyes can tell 
 secrets, she must have discovered, in my eyes, that I hungered 
 and thirsted to see her in the hangman's hands. From first 
 to last, I tell you, Mrs. Borgia-Beauly was on her guard 
 against me. Can I describe her cunning ? All my resources 
 of language are not equal to the task. Take the degrees of 
 comparison to give you a faint idea of it : I am positively 
 cunning; the devil is comparatively canning; Mrs. Beauly 
 is superlatively cunning. No ! no ! If she is ever discov- 
 ered, at this distance of time, it will not be done by a man 
 it will be done by a woman : a woman whom she doesn't 
 suspect ; a woman who can watch her with the patience of 
 a tigress in a state of starvation " 
 
 " Say a woman like Me !" I broke out. " I am ready to 
 try." 
 
 His eyes glittered ; his teeth showed themselves viciously 
 under his mustache; he drummed llercely with both hands 
 on the arms of his chair. 
 
 " Do you really mean it ?" he asked. 
 
 "Put me in your position," I answered. "Enlighten me 
 with your moral certainty (as you call it) and you shall 
 see !" 
 
 " I'll do it !" he said. " Tell me one thing first. How did 
 an outside stranger, like you, come to suspect her?" 
 
 I set before him, to the best of my ability, the various ele- 
 ments of suspicion which I had collected from the evidence 
 at the Trial ; and I laid especial stress on the fact (sworn to 
 by the nurse) that Mrs. Beauly was missing exactly at the 
 time when Christina Ormsay had left Mrs. Eustace Macallan 
 alone in her room. 
 
 "You have hit it!" cried Miserrimus Dexter. "You are 
 a wonderful woman ! What was she doing on the morn- 
 ing of the day when Mrs. Eustace Macallan died poisoned ? 
 And where was she during the dark hours of the night ?
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 223 
 
 I can tell you where she was not she was not in her own 
 room." 
 
 " Not in her own room ?" I repeated. " Are you really 
 sure of that ?" 
 
 " I am sure of every thing that I say, when I am speaking 
 of Mrs. Beauly. Mind that : and now listen ! This is a 
 drama; and I excel in dramatic narrative. You shall judge 
 for yourself. Date, the twentieth of October. Scene, the 
 Corridor, called the Guests' Corridor, at Gleninch. On one 
 side, a row of windows looking out into the garden. On the 
 other, a row of four bedrooms, with dressing-rooms attached. 
 First bedroom (beginning from the staircase), occupied by 
 Mrs. Beauly. Second bedroom, empty. Third bedroom, oc- 
 cupied by Miserrimus Dexter. Fourth bedroom, empty. 
 So much for the Scene ! The time comes next the time is 
 eleven at night. Dexter discovered in his bedroom, reading. 
 Enter to him Eustace Macallan. Eustace speaks : ' My dear 
 fellow, be particularly careful not to make any noise; don't 
 bowl your chair up and down the corridor to-night.' Dex- 
 ter inquires, * Why ?' Eustace answers: ' Mrs. Beauly has 
 been dining with some friends in Edinburgh, and has come 
 back terribly fatigued : she has gone up to her room to rest.' 
 Dexter makes another inquiry (satirical inquiry, this time) : 
 ' How does she look when she is terribly fatigued ? As 
 beautiful as ever ?' Answer : ' I don't know ; I have not 
 seen hor; she slipped up-stairs,. without speaking to any 
 body.' Third inquiry by Dexter (logical inquiry, on this 
 occasion) : 'If she spoke to nobody, how do you know she is 
 fatigued ?' Eustace hands Dexter a morsel of paper, and an- 
 swers: 'Don't be a fool ! I found this on the hall table. He- 
 member what I have told you about keeping quiet; good- 
 night!' Eustace retires. Dexter looks at the paper, and 
 reads these lines in pencil: 'Just returned. Please forgive 
 me for going to bed without saying good-night. I have 
 overexerted myself; I am dreadfully fatigued. (Signed) 
 Helena.' Dexter is by nature suspicious. Dexter suspects 
 Mrs. Beauly. Never mind his reasons ; there is no time to 
 enter into his reasons now. He puts the case to himself thus : 
 ' A weary woman would never have given herself the trouble 
 to write this. She would have found it much less fatiguing 
 to knock at the drawing-room door as she passed, and to make 
 her apologies by word of mouth. I see something here out
 
 224 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 of the ordinary way ; I shall make a night of it in my chair.' 
 Very good. Dexter proceeds to make a night of it. He 
 opens his door; wheels himself softly into the corridor; locks 
 the doors of the two empty bedrooms, and returns (with the 
 keys- in his pocket) to his own room. 'Now,' says D. to 
 himself, ' if I hear a door softly opened in this part of the 
 house, I shall know for certain it is Mrs. Beauly's door !' 
 Upon that he closes his own door, leaving the tiniest little 
 chink to look through ; puts out his light ; and waits and 
 watches at his tiny little chink, like a cat at a mouse-hole. 
 The corridor is the only place he wants to see ; and a lamp 
 burns there all night. Twelve o'clock strikes ; he hears the 
 doors below bolted and locked, and nothing happens. Half- 
 past twelve and nothing still. The house is as silent as 
 the grave. One o'clock; two o'clock same silence. Half- 
 past two and something happens at last. Dexter hears a 
 sound close by, in the corridor. It is the sound of a handle 
 turning very softly in a door in the only door that can be 
 opened, the door of Mrs. Beauly's room. Dexter drops noise- 
 lessly from his chair onto his hands ; lies flat on the floor at 
 his chink, and listens. He hears the handle closed again ; 
 he sees a dark object flit by him; he pops his head out of 
 his door, down on the floor where nobody would think of 
 looking for him. And what does he see ? Mrs. Beauly ! 
 There she goes, with the long brown cloak over her shoul- 
 ders, which she wears when she is driving, floating behind her. 
 In a moment more she disappears, past the fourth bedroom, 
 and turns at a right angle, into a second corridor, called the 
 South Corridor. What rooms are in the South Corridor? 
 There are three rooms. First room, the little study, men- 
 tioned in the nurse's evidence. Second room, Mrs. Eustace 
 Macallan's bedchamber. Third room, her husband's bed- 
 chamber. What does Mrs. Beauly (supposed to be worn out 
 by fatigue) want in that part of the house at half-past two 
 in the morning ? Dexter decides on running the risk of be- 
 ing seen and sets off on a voyage of discoveiy. Do you 
 know how he gets from place to place without his chair? 
 Have you seen the poor deformed creature hop on his hands ? 
 Shall he show you how he does it, before he goes on with 
 his story ?" 
 
 I hastened to stop the proposed exhibition. 
 
 " I saw you hop last night," I said. " Go on ! pray go on 
 with your story !"
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 225 
 
 "Do you like my dramatic style of narrative ?" he asked. 
 " Am I interesting '?" 
 
 " Indescribably interesting, Mr. Dexter. I am eager to 
 hear more." 
 
 He smiled in high approval of his own abilities. 
 
 "I am equally good at the autobiographical style," he 
 said. " Shall we try that next, by way of variety ?" 
 
 "Any tiling you like," I cried, losing all patience with 
 him, " if you will only go on !" 
 
 " Part Two ; Autobiographical Style," he announced, with 
 a wave of his hand. "I hopped along the Guests' Corridor, 
 and turned into the South Corridor. I stopped at the little 
 study. Door open; nobody there. I crossed the study to 
 the second door, communicating with Mrs. Macallan's bed- 
 chamber. Locked ! I looked through the keyhole. Was 
 there something hanging over it, on the other side ? I can't 
 say I only know there was nothing to be seen but blank 
 darkness. I listened. Nothing to be heard. Same blank 
 darkness, same absolute silence, inside the locked second door 
 of Mrs. Eustace's room, opening on the corridor. I went 
 on to her husband's bedchamber. I had the worst possible 
 opinion of Mrs. Beauly I should not have been in the least 
 surprised if I had caught her in Eustace's room. I looked 
 through the keyhole. In this case, the key was out of it 
 or was turned the right way for me I don't know which. 
 Eustace's bed was opposite the door. No discovery. I could 
 sec him, all by himself, innocently asleep. I reflected a little. 
 The back staircase was at the end of the corridor, beyond 
 me. I slid down the stairs, and looked about me on the 
 lower floor, by the light of the night-lamp. Doors all fast 
 locked, a,nd keys outside, so that I could try them myself. 
 House door barred and bolted. Door leading into the serv- 
 ants' offices barred and bolted. I got back to my own room, 
 and thought it out quietly. "Where could she be ? Certainly 
 in the house, somewhere. Where? I had made sure of the 
 other rooms ; the field of search was exhausted. She could 
 only be in Mrs. Macallan's room the one room which had 
 baffled my investigations ; the only room which had not lent 
 itself to examination. Add to this that the key of the door 
 in the study, communicating with Mrs. Macallan's room, \vas 
 stated in the nurse's evidence to be missing; and don't forget 
 that the dearest object of Mrs. lieauly's life (on the showing
 
 226 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 of her own letter, read at the Trial) was to be Eustace Macal- 
 lan's happy wife. Put these things together in your 'own 
 mind, and you will know what my thoughts were, as I sat 
 waiting for events in my chair, without my telling you. 
 Toward four o'clock, strong as I am, fatigue got the better 
 of me. I fell asleep. Not for long. I awoke with a start 
 and looked at my watch. Twenty-five minutes past four. 
 Had she got back to her room while I was asleep ? I hopped 
 to her door and listened. Not a sound. I softly opened 
 the door. The room wafe empty, I went back again to rny 
 own room to wait and watch. It was hard work to keep my 
 eyes open. I drew up the window to let the cool air refresh 
 me; I fought hard with exhausted nature, and exhausted 
 nature won. I fell asleep again. This time it was eight in 
 the morning when I awoke. I have goodish ears, as you may 
 have noticed. I heard women's voices talking under my 
 open window. I peeped out. Mrs. Beauly and her maid in 
 close confabulation ! Mrs. Beauly and 'her maid looking 
 guiltily about them to make sure that they were neither 
 seen nor heard ! 'Take care, ma'am,' I heard the maid say; 
 ' that horrid deformed monster is as sly as a fox. Mind he 
 doesn't discover you.' Mrs. Beauly answered, ' You go first, 
 and look out in front ; I will follow you, and make sure 
 there is nobody behind us.' With that they disappeared 
 around the corner of the house. In five minutes more I heard 
 the door of Mrs. Beauly's room softly opened and closed 
 again. Three hours later the nurse met her in the corridor, 
 innocently on her way to make inquiries at Mrs. Eustace 
 Macallan's door. What do you think of these circumstances? 
 What do you think of Mrs. Beauly and her maid having some- 
 thing to say to each other, which they didn't dare say in the 
 house for fear of my being behind some door listening to 
 them ? What do you think of these discoveries of mine be- 
 ing made on the very morning when Mrs. Eustace was taken 
 ill on the very day when she died by a poisoner's hand ? 
 Do you see your way to the guilty person ? And has mad 
 Miserrimus Dexter been of some assistance to you, so far ?" 
 
 I was too violently excited to answer .him. The way to 
 the vindication of my husband's innocence was opened to 
 me at last ! 
 
 "Where is she?" I cried. "And where is that servant 
 who is in her confidence ?"
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 227 
 
 " I can't tell you," he said. " I don't know." 
 
 " Where can I inquire ? Can you tell me that ?" 
 
 He considered a little. 
 
 "There is one man who must know where she is or who 
 could find it out for you," he said. 
 
 " Who is he ? What is his name ?" 
 
 "He is a friend of Eustace's. Major Fitz-David." 
 
 "I know him! I am going to dine with him next week. 
 He has asked you to dine too.'? 
 
 Miserrimus Dexter laughed contemptuously. 
 
 "Major Fitz-David may do very well for the ladies," he 
 said. "The ladies can treat him as a species of elderly hu- 
 man lap-dog. I don't dine with lap-dogs ; I have said, No. 
 You go. He or some of his ladies may be of use to you. 
 Who are the guests ? Did he tell you ?" 
 
 " There was a French lady whose name I forget," I said, 
 "and Lady Clarinda " 
 
 " That will do ! - She is a friend of Mrs. Beauly's. She is 
 sure to know where Mrs. Beauly is. Come to me the mo- 
 ment you have got your information. Find out if the maid 
 is with her: she is the easiest to deal with of the two. Only 
 make the maid open her lips, and we have got Mrs. Beauly. 
 We crush her," he cried, bringing -his hand down like light- 
 ning on the last languid fly of the season, crawling over the 
 arm of his chair " we crush her as I crush this fly. Stop ! 
 A question a most important question in dealing with the 
 maid. Have you got any money ?" 
 
 "Plenty of money." 
 
 He snapped his fingers joyously. 
 
 "The maid is ours !" he cried. "It's a matter of pounds, 
 shillings, and pence with the maid. Wait ! Another ques- 
 tion. About your name ? If you approach Mrs. Beauly in 
 your own character as Eustace's wife, you approach her as 
 the woman who has taken her place you make a mortal 
 enemy of her at starting. Beware of that !" 
 
 My jealousy of Mrs. Beauly, smouldering in me all through 
 the interview, burst into flames at those words. I could re- 
 sist it no longer I was obliged to ask him if my husband 
 had ever loved her. 
 
 " Tell me the truth," I said. " Did Eustace really ?" 
 
 He burst out laughing maliciously, he penetrated my jeal- 
 ousy, and guessed my question almost before it had passed 
 my lips.
 
 228 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 " Yes," he said, " Eustace did really love her and no mis- 
 take about it. She had every reason to believe (before the 
 Trial) that the wife's death would put her in the wife's place. 
 But the Trial made another man of Eustace. Mrs. Beauly 
 had been a witness of the public degradation of him. That 
 was enough to prevent his marrying Mrs. Beauly. He broke 
 off with her at once and forever for the same reason pre- 
 cisely which has led him to separate himself from you. Ex- 
 istence with a woman who knew that he had been tried for 
 his life as a murderer was an existence that he was not hero 
 enough to face. You wanted the truth. There it is ! You 
 have need to be cautious of Mrs. Beauly you have no need 
 to be jealous of her. Take the safe course. Arrange with 
 the Major, when you meet Lady Clarinda at his dinner, that 
 you meet her uifder an assumed name." 
 
 " I can go to the dinner," I said, " under the name in which 
 Eustace married me. I can go as 'Mrs.Woodville.'" 
 
 "The very thing!" he exclaimed. "What would I not 
 give to be present when Lady Clarinda inti'oduces you to 
 Mrs. Beauly ! Think of the situation. A woman with a hid- 
 eous secret hidden in her inmost soul : and another woman 
 who knows of it another woman who is bent, by fair means 
 or foul, on dragging that secret into the light of day. What 
 a struggle ! Whart a plot for a novel ! I am in a fever when 
 I think of it. I am beside myself when I look into the fut- 
 ure, and see Mrs. Borgia-Beauly brought to her knees at last. 
 Don't be alarmed !" he cried, with the wild light flashing 
 once more in his eyes. "My brains are beginning to boil 
 again in my head. I must take refuge in physical exercise. 
 I must blow off the steam, or I shall explode in my pink 
 jacket on the spot !" 
 
 The old madness seized on him again. I made for the 
 door, to secure my retreat in case of necessity and then 
 ventured to look around at him. 
 
 He was off on his furious wheels half man, half chair 
 flying like a whirlwind to the other end of the room. Even 
 this exercise was not violent enough for him in his present 
 mood. In an instant he was down on the floor, poised on 
 his hands, and looking in the distance like a monstrous frog. 
 Hopping down the room, he overthrew, one after another, 
 all the smaller and lighter chairs as he passed them. Arrived 
 at the end, he turned, surveyed the prostrate chairs, encour-
 
 TOE LAW AXJ) THE LADY. 229 
 
 aged himself with a scream of triumph, and leaped rapidly 
 over chair after chair on his hands his limbless body now 
 thrown back from the shoulders, and now thrown forward to 
 keep the balance in a manner at once^-wonderful and horri- 
 ble to behold. ]"^ { Dexter's Leap-frog !'^_W cried, cheerfully, 
 perching himaeuwith his bird-like lightness on the last of 
 the prostrate chairs when he had reached the farther end of 
 the room. (^I'm pretty active, Mrs. Valeria, considering I'm 
 a cripple. Let us drink to th hanging of Mrs. Beauly in 
 another bottle of Burgundy !" ~~\ 
 
 I seized desperately on the first excuse that occurred to me 
 for getting away from him. 
 
 "You forget," I said "I must go at once to the Major. 
 If I don't warn him in time, he may speak of me to Lady 
 Clarinda by the wrong name." 
 
 Ideas of hurry and movement were just the ideas to take 
 his fancy in his present state. He blew furiously on the 
 whistle that summoned Ariel from the kitchen regions, and 
 danced up and down on his hands in the full frenzy of his 
 delight. 
 
 "Ariel shall get you a cab!" he cried. "Drive at a gal- 
 lop to the Major's. Set the trap for her without losing a 
 moment. Oh, what a day of days this has been ! Oh, what 
 a relief to get rid of my dreadful secret, and share it with 
 You ! I am suffocating with happiness I am like the Spir- 
 it of the Earth in Shelley's poem." He broke out with the 
 magnificent lines in " Prometheus Unbound," in which the 
 Earth feels the Spirit of Love, and bursts into speech. " ' The 
 joy, the triumph, the delight, the madness ! the boundless, 
 overflowing, bursting gladness! the vaporous exultation not 
 to be confined ! Ha ! ha ! the animation of delight, which 
 wraps me like an atmosphere of light, and bears me as a 
 cloud is borne by its own wind.' That's how I feel, Valeria ! 
 that's how I feel !" 
 
 I crossed the threshold while he was still speaking. The 
 last I saw of him he was pouring out that glorious flood 
 of words his deformed body, poised on the overthrown 
 chair, his face lifted in rapture to some fantastic heaven 
 of his own making. I slipped out softly into the ante- 
 chamber. Even as I crossed the room, he changed once 
 more. I heard his ringing cry ; I heard the soft thump- 
 thump of his hands on the floor. He was going down the
 
 230 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 room again, in "Dexter's Leap-frog," flying over the pros- 
 trate chairs. 
 
 In the hall, Ariel was on the watch for me. 
 
 As I approached her, I happened to be putting on my 
 gloves. She stopped me ; and, taking my right arm, lifted 
 my hand toward her face. Was she going to kiss it ? or to 
 bite it ? Neither. She smelt it like a dog and dropped it 
 again with a hoarse chuckling laugh. 
 
 " You don't smell of his perfumes," she said. "You haven? t 
 touched his beard. JVbiv I believe you. Want a cab ?" 
 
 " Thank you. I'll walk till I meet a cab." 
 
 She was bent on being polite to me now I had not 
 touched his beard. 
 
 " I say !" she burst out, in her deepest notes. 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 " I'm glad I didn't upset you in the canal. There now !" 
 
 She gave me a friendly smack on the shoulder which near- 
 ly knocked me down relapsed, the instant after, into her 
 leaden stolidity of look and manner and led the way out 
 by the front door. I heard her hoarse chuckling laugh as 
 she locked the gate behind me. My star was at last in the 
 ascendant ! In one and the same day I had found my way 
 into the confidence of Ariel and Ariel's master. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 THE DEFENSE OF MRS. BEAULY. 
 
 THE days that elapsed before Major Fitz-David's dinner- 
 party were pi-ecious days to me. 
 
 My long interview with Miserrimus Dexter had disturbed 
 me far more seriously than I suspected at the time. It was 
 not until some hours after I had left him that I really began 
 to feel how my nerves had been tried by all that I had seen 
 and heard during my visit at his house. I started at the 
 slightest noises ; I dreamed of dreadful things ; I was ready 
 to cry without reason at one moment, and to fly into a pas- 
 sion without reason, at another. Absolute rest was what I 
 wanted, and (thanks to my good Benjamin) was what I got. 
 The dear old man controlled his anxieties on my account, 
 and spared me the questions which his fatherly interest in
 
 THE LAW AXD THE LADY. 231 
 
 my welfare made him eager to ask. It was tacitly understood 
 between us that all conversation on the subject of my visit 
 to Miserrimus Dexter (of which, it is needless to say, he 
 strongly disapproved) should be deferred until repose had 
 restored my energies of body and mind. I saw no visitors. 
 Mrs. Macallan came to the cottage, and Major Fitz-David 
 came to the cottage one of them to hear what had passed 
 between Miserrimus Dexter and myself, the other to amuse 
 me with the latest gossip about the guests at the forthcom- 
 ing dinner. Benjamin took it on himself to make my apol- 
 ogies, and to spare me the exertion of receiving my visitors. 
 We hired a little open carriage, and took long drives in the 
 pretty country lanes still left flourishing within a few miles 
 of the northern suburb of London. At home we sat and 
 talked quietly of old times, or played at backgammon and 
 dominoes and so, for a few happy days, led the peaceful 
 tiTiacl venturous life which was good for me. When the day 
 of the dinner arrived, I felt restored to my customary health. 
 I was ready again, and eager again, for the introduction to 
 Lady Clarinda and the discovery of Mrs. Beauly. 
 
 Benjamin looked a little sadly at my flushed face as we 
 drove to Major Fitz-David's house. 
 
 "Ah, my dear," he said, in his simple way, "I see you are 
 well again ! You have had enough of our quiet life already." 
 
 My recollection of events and persons, in general, at the 
 dinner-party, is singularly indistinct. I remember that we 
 were very merry, and as easy and familiar with one another 
 as if we had been old friends. I remember that Madame 
 Mirliflore was unapproachably superior to the other women 
 present, in the perfect beauty of her dress, and in the ample 
 justice which she did to the luxurious dinner set before us. 
 I remember the Major's young prima donna, more round- 
 eyed, more overdressed, more shrill and strident as the com- 
 ing "Queen of Song," than ever. I remember the Major 
 himself, always kissing our hands, always luring us to in- 
 dulge in dainty dishes and drinks, always making love, al- 
 ways detecting resemblances between us, always " under the 
 charm," and never once out of his character as elderly Don 
 Juan from the beginning of the evening to the end. I re- 
 member dear old Benjamin, completely bewildered, shrinking 
 into corners, blushing when lie was personally drawn into the 
 conversation, frightened at Madame Mirliflore, bashful with
 
 232 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 Lady Clarinda, submissive to the Major, suffering under the 
 music, and from the bottom of his honest old heart wishing 
 himself home again. And there, as to the members of that 
 cheerful little gathering, my memory finds its limits with 
 one exception. The appearance of Lady Clarinda is as pres- 
 ent to me as if I had met her yesterday ; and of the memor- 
 able conversation which we two held together privately, 
 toward the close of the evening, it is no exaggeration to say 
 that I can still call to mind almost every word. 
 |^I see her dress, I hear her voice again, while I write. 
 
 She was attired, I remember, with that extreme assumption 
 _ s^of simplicity which always defeats its own end by irresisti- 
 bly suggesting art. She wore plain white muslin, over white 
 silk, without trimming or ornament of any kind. Her rich 
 brown hair, dressed in defiance of the prevailing fashion, was 
 thrown back from her forehead, and gathered into a simple 
 knot behind without adornment of any sort. A little white 
 ribbon encircled her neck, fastened by the only article of jew- 
 elry that she wore a tiny diamond brooch. She was un- 
 questionably handsome ; but her beauty was of the some- 
 what hm-djyirLaagailarJ^q^which is so often seen in English 
 women of her race : the nose and chin too prominent and too 
 firmly shaped; the well-opened gray eyes full of spirit and 
 dignity, but wanting in tenderness and mobility of expres- 
 sion. Her manner had all the charm which fine breeding 
 can confer exquisitely polite, easily cordial ; showing that 
 perfect yet unobtrusive confidence in herself which (in En- 
 gland) seems to be the natural outgrowth of pre-eminent so- 
 cial rank. If you had accepted her for what she was, on the 
 surface, you would have said, Here is the model of a noble 
 woman who is perfectly free from pride. And if you had 
 taken a liberty with her, on the strength of that conviction, 
 she would have made you remember it to the end of your life. 
 
 We got on together admirably. I was introduced as 
 "Mrs. Woodville," by pi-evious arrangement with the Major 
 effected through Benjamin. Before the dinner was over 
 we had promised to exchange visits. Nothing but the op- 
 portunity was wanting to lead Lady Clarinda into talking, 
 as I wanted her to talk, of Mrs. Beauly. 
 
 Late in the evening the opportunity came. 
 
 I had taken refuge from the terrible bravura singing of 
 the Major's strident prima donna in the back drawing-room.
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 233 
 
 As I had hoped and anticipated, after a while Lady Clarinda 
 (missing me from the group around the piano) came in search 
 of me. She seated herself by my side, out of sight and out 
 of hearing of our friends in the front room ; and, to my infi- 
 nite relief and delight, touched on the subject of Miserrimus 
 Dexter of her own accord. Something I had said of him, 
 when his name had been accidentally mentioned at dinner, 
 remained in her memory, and led" us, by perfectly natu- 
 ral gradations, into speaking of Mrs. Beau ly. "At last," I 
 thought to myself, " the Major's little dinner will bring me 
 my reward !" 
 
 And what a reward it was, when it came ! My heart sinks 
 in me again as it sank on that never-to-be-forgotten even- 
 ing while I sit at my desk thinking of it. 
 
 "So Dexter really spoke to you of Mrs. Beauly !" ex- 
 claimed Lady Clarinda. "You have no idea how you sur- 
 prise me." 
 
 "May Task why?" 
 
 "He hates her ! The last time I saw him he wouldn't al- 
 low me to mention her name. It is one of his innumerable 
 oddities. If any such feeling as sympathy is a possible feel- 
 ing in such a nature as his, he ought to like Helena Beauly. 
 She is the most completely unconventional person I know. 
 When she does break out, poor dear, she says things and 
 does things which are almost reckless enough to be worthy 
 of Dexter himself. I wonder whether you would like her?" 
 
 "You have kindly asked me to visit you, Lady Clarinda. 
 Perhaps I may meet her at your house ?" 
 
 "I hope you will not wait until that is likely to happen," 
 she said. " Helena's last whim is to fancy that she has got 
 the gout, of all the maladies in the world ! She is away 
 at some wonderful baths in Hungary or Bohemia (I don't 
 remember which) and where she will go, or what she will 
 do next, it is perfectly impossible to say. Dear Mrs. Wood- 
 ville! is the heat of the fire too much for you? You are 
 looking quite pale." 
 
 I felt that I was looking pale. The discovery of Mrs. 
 Beauly's absence from England was a shock for which I was 
 quite unprepared. For a moment it unnerved me. 
 
 "Shall we go into the other room?" asked Lady Clarinda. 
 
 To go into the other room would be to drop the conversa- 
 L
 
 234 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 tion. I was determined not to let that catastrophe happen. 
 It was just possible that Mrs. Beauly's maid might have 
 quitted her service, or might have been left behind in En- 
 gland. My information would not be complete until I knew 
 what had become of the maid. I pushed my chair back a 
 little from the fire-place, and took a hand-screen from a table 
 near me ; it might be made useful in hiding my face, if any 
 more disappointments were in store for me. 
 
 " Thank you, Lady Clarinda ; I was only a little too near 
 the fire. I shall do admirably here. You surprise me about 
 Mrs. Beauly. From what Mr. Dexter said to me, I had im- 
 agined " 
 
 " Oh, you must not believe any thing Dexter tells you !" 
 interposed Lady Clarinda. " He delights in mystifying peo- 
 ple; and he purposely misled you, I have no doubt. If all 
 that I hear is true, he ought to know more of Helena Beau- 
 ly's strange freaks and fancies than most people. He all but 
 discovered her in one of her adventures (down in Scotland), 
 which reminds me of the story in Auber's charming opera 
 what is it called ? I shall forget my own name next ! I 
 mean the opera in which the two nuns slip out of the con- 
 vent, and go to the ball. Listen ! How very odd ! That vul- 
 gar girl is singing the Castanet song in the second act at this 
 moment. Major ! what opera is the young lady singing from?" 
 
 The Major was scandalized at this interruption. He bus- 
 tled into the back room whispered," Hush ! hush ! my dear 
 lady; the Domino Noir" and bustled back again to the 
 piano. 
 
 "Of course!" said Lady Clarinda. "How stupid of me! 
 The Domino JVoir. And how strange that you should forget 
 it too !" 
 
 I had remembered it perfectly ; but I could not trust my- 
 self to speak. If, as I believed, the " adventure" mentioned 
 by Lady Clarinda was connected, in some way, with Mrs. 
 Beauly's mysterious proceedings on the morning of the twen- 
 ty-first of October, I was on the brink of the very discovery 
 which it was the one interest of my life to make ! I held 
 the screen so as to hide rny face ; and I said in the steadiest 
 voice that I could command at the moment, 
 
 "Pray go on ! pray tell me what the adventure was !" 
 
 Lady Clarinda was quite flattered by my eager desire to 
 hear the coming narrative.
 
 THE LAW AM) THE LADY. 2:5.") 
 
 "I hope my story will be worthy of the interest which you 
 are so good as to feel in it," she said. " If you only knew 
 Helena it is so like her ! I have it, you must know", from 
 her maid. She has taken a woman who speaks foreign lan- 
 guages with her to Hungary, and she has left the maid with me. 
 A perfect treasure ! I should be only too glad if I could keep 
 her in my service: she has but one defect, a name I hate 
 Phoebe. Well ! Phoebe and her mistress were staying at a 
 place near Edinburgh, called (I think) Gleninch. The house 
 belonged to that Mr. Macallan who was afterward tried 
 you remember it, of course ? for poisoning his wife. A 
 dreadful case; but don't be alarmed my story has nothing 
 to do with it ; my story has to do with Helena Beauly. One 
 evening (while she was staying at Gleninch) she was en- 
 gaged to dine with some English friends visiting Edinburgh. 
 The same night also in Edinburgh there was a masked 
 ball, given by somebody whose name I forget. The ball (al- 
 most an unparalleled event in Scotland !) was reported to be 
 not at all a reputable affair. All sorts of amusing people 
 were to be there. TjLadies of doubtful virtue, you know, 
 and gentlemen on tlie outlying limits of society, and so on. 
 Helena's friends had contrived to get cardsjand were go- 
 ing, in spite of the objections in the strictest incognito, of 
 course, trusting to their masks. And Helena herself was 
 bent on going with them, if she could only manage it with- 
 out being discovered at Gleninch. Mr. Macallan was one of 
 the strait-laced people who disapproved of the ball. No lady, 
 he said, could show herself at such an entertainment without 
 compromising her reputation. What stuff! Well, Helena, 
 in one of her wildest moments, hit on a way of going to the 
 ball without discovery which was really as ingenious as a 
 plot in a French play. She went to the dinner in the car- 
 riage from Gleninch, having sent Phoebe to Edinburgh be- 
 fore her. It was not a grand dinner a little friendly gath- 
 ering: no evening dress. When the time came for going 
 back to Gleninch, what do you think Helena did? She sent 
 her maid back in the carriage, instead of herself! Phoebe 
 was dressed in her mistress's cloak and bonnet and veil. She 
 was instructed to run up-stairs the moment she got to the 
 house, leaving on the hall table a little note of apology 
 (written by Helena, of course !), pleading fatigue as an excuse 
 for not saying good-night to her host. The mistress and the
 
 236 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 maid were about the same height ; and the servants natu- 
 rally never discovered the trick. Phoebe got up to her mis- 
 tress's room safely enough. There, her instructions were to 
 wait until the house was quiet for the night, and then to 
 steal up to her own room. While she was waiting, the girl 
 tell asleep. She only awoke at two in the morning, or later. 
 It didn't much matter, as she thought. She stole out on 
 tiptoe, and closed the door behind her. Before she was at 
 the end of the corridor, she fancied she heard something. 
 She waited until she was safe on the upper story, and then 
 she looked over the banisters. There was Dexter so like 
 him! hopping about on his hands (did you ever see it? 
 the most grotesquely horrible exhibition you can imagine !) 
 there was Dexter, hopping about, and looking through key- 
 holes, evidently in search of the person who had left her 
 room at two in the morning; and no doubt taking Phcebe 
 for her mistress, seeing that she had forgotten to take her 
 mistress's cloak off her shoulders. The next morning, early, 
 Helena came back in a hired carriage from Edinburgh, with 
 a hat and mantle borrowed from her English friends. She 
 left the carnage in the road, and got into the house by way of 
 the garden without being discovered, this time, by Dexter 
 or by any body. Clever and daring, wasn't it? And, as I 
 said just now, quite a new version of the Domino Noir. 
 You will wonder, as I did, how it was that Dexter didn't 
 make mischief in the morning ? He would have done it no 
 doubt. But even he was silenced (as Phcebe told me) by 
 the dreadful event that happened in the house on the same 
 clay. My dear Mrs. Woodville ! the heat of this room is cer- 
 tainly too much for you, take my smelling-bottle. Let me 
 open the window." 
 
 I was just able to answer, "Pray say nothing! Let me 
 slip out into the open air !" 
 
 1 made my way unobserved to the landing, and sat down 
 on the stairs to compose myself where nobody could see me. 
 In a moment more I felt a hand laid gently on my shoul- 
 der, and discovered good Benjamin looking at me in dismay. 
 Lady Clarinda had considerately spoken to him, and had as- 
 sisted him in quietly making his retreat from the room, while 
 his host's attention was still absorbed by the music. 
 
 "My dear child !" he whispered, " what is the matter?" 
 
 "Take me home, and I will tell you," was all that I could say.
 
 THE LAW AND 1 UK LADY. 237 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 A SPECIMEN OP MY WISDOM. 
 
 THE scene must follow my erratic movements the scene 
 must close on London for a while, and open in Edinburgh. 
 
 Two days had passed since Major Fitz-David's dinner- 
 party. I was able to breathe again freely, after the utter 
 destruction of all my plans for the future, and of all the hopes 
 that I had founded on them. I could now see that I had 
 been trebly in the wrong wrong in hastily and cruelly sus- 
 pecting an innocent woman ; wrong in communicating my 
 suspicions (without an attempt to verify them previously) to 
 another person; wrong in accepting the flighty inferences 
 and conclusions of Miserrimus Dexter as if they had been 
 solid truths. I was so ashamed of my folly, when I thought 
 of the past so completely discouraged, so rudely shaken in 
 my confidence in mvself, when I thought of the future, that, 
 for once in a way, I accepted sensible advice when it was of- 
 fered to me. "My dear," said good old Benjamin, after we 
 had thoroughly talked over my discomfiture on our return 
 from the dinner-party, "judging by what you tell me of him, 
 I don't fancy Mr. Dexter. Promise me that you will not go 
 back to him until you have first consulted some person who 
 is fitter to guide you through this dangerous business than I 
 am." 
 
 I gave him my promise, on one condition. "If I fail to 
 find the person," I said, "will you undertake to help me?" 
 
 Benjamin pledged himself to help me, cheerfully. 
 
 The next morning, when I was brushing my hair, and 
 thinking over my affairs, I called to mind a forgotten reso- 
 lution of mine at the time when I first read the Report of 
 my husband's Trial. I mean the resolution if Miserrimus 
 Dexter failed me to apply to one of the two agents (or solic- 
 itors, as we should term them) who had prepared Eustace's 
 defense namely, Mr. Playmore. This gentleman, it maybe 
 remembered, had especially recommended himself to my con- 
 fidence by his friendly interference when the sheriff's offi- 
 cers were in search of my husband's papers. Referring baek
 
 238 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 to the evidence of " Isaiah Schoolcraft," I found that Mr. 
 Playmore had been called in to assist and advise Eustace by 
 Miserrimus Dexter. He was therefore not only a friend on 
 whom I might rely, but a friend who was personally ac- 
 quainted with Dexter as well. Could there be a fitter man 
 to apply to for enlightenment in the darkness that had now 
 gathered around me ? Benjamin, when I put the question to 
 him, acknowledged that I had made a sensible choice on this 
 occasion, and at once exerted himself to help me. He dis- 
 covered (through his own lawyer) the address of Mr. Play- 
 more's London agents; and from these gentlemen he ob- 
 tained for me a letter of introduction to Mr. Playmore him- 
 self. I had nothing to conceal from my new* adviser; and I 
 was properly described in the letter as Eustace Macallan's 
 second wife. 
 
 The same evening we two set forth (Benjamin refused to 
 let me travel alone) by the night mail for Edinburgh. 
 
 I had previously written to Miserrimus Dexter (by my 
 old friend's advice), merely saying that I had been unexpect- 
 edly called away from London for a few days, and that I 
 would report to him the result of my interview with Lady 
 Clarinda on my return. A characteristic answer was brought 
 back to the cottage by Ariel : " Mrs. Valeria, 1 happen to 
 be a man of quick perceptions ; and I can read the unwrit- 
 ten part of your letter. Lady Clarinda has shaken your con- 
 fidence in me. Very good. I pledge myself to shake your 
 confidence in Lady Clarinda. In the mean time I am not 
 offended. In serene composure I await the honor and the 
 happiness of your visit. Send me word by telegraph wheth- 
 er you would like Truffles again, or whether you would pre- 
 fer something simpler and lighter say that incomparable 
 French dish, Pig's Eyelids and Tamarinds. Believe me al- 
 ways your ally and admirer, your poet and cook DEXTER." 
 
 Arrived in Edinburgh, Benjamin and I had a little discus- 
 sion. The question in dispute between us was whether I 
 should go with him, or go alone, to Mr. Playmore. I was 
 all for going alone. 
 
 " My experience of the world is not a very large one," I 
 said. " But I have observed that, in nine cases out often, a 
 man will make concessions to a woman, if she approaches 
 him by herself, which he would hesitate even to consider 
 if another man was within hearing. I don't know how it is I
 
 THE \.\\\- AM) THE LADY. 239 
 
 only know that it is so. If I find that I get on badly with 
 Mr. Play more, I will ask him for a second appointment, and, 
 in that case, you shall accompany me. Don't think me self- 
 willed. Let me try my luck alone, and let us see what comes 
 of it," 
 
 Benjamin yielded, with his customary consideration for 
 me. I sent my letter of introduction to Mr. Playmore's of- 
 fice his private house being in the neighborhood of Glen- 
 inch. My messenger brought back a polite answer, inviting 
 me to visit him at an early hour in the afternoon. At the 
 appointed time, to the moment, I rang the bell at the office 
 door. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 A SPECIMEN OF MY FOLLY. 
 
 THE incomprehensible submission of Scotchmen to the ec- 
 clesiastical tyranny of their Established Church has pro- 
 duced not unnaturally, as I think a very mistaken impres- 
 sion of the national character in the popular mind. 
 
 Public opinion looks at the institution of "The Sabbath" 
 in Scotland; finds it unparalleled in Christendom for its 
 senseless and savage austerity ; sees a nation content to be 
 deprived by its priesthood of every social privilege on one 
 day in every week forbidden to travel ; forbidden to tele- 
 graph ; forbidden to eat a hot dinner ; forbidden to read a 
 newspaper; in short, allowed the use of two liberties only, 
 the liberty of exhibiting one's self at the Church and the liber- 
 ty of secluding one's self over the bottle public opinion sees 
 this, and arrives at the not unreasonable conclusion that the 
 people who submit to such social laws as these are the most 
 stolid, stern, and joyless people on the face of the earth. 
 Such are Scotchmen supposed to be, when viewed at a dis- 
 tance. But how do Scotchmen appear when they are seen 
 under a closer light, and judged by the test of personal ex- 
 perience? There are no people more cheerful, more com- 
 panionable, more hospitable, more liberal in their ideas to be 
 found on the face of the civilized globe than the very people 
 who submit to the Scotch Sunday ! On the six days of the 
 week there is an atmosphere of quiet humor, a radiation of 
 genial common-sense, about Scotchmen in general, which is
 
 240 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 simply delightful to feel. But on the seventh day these 
 same men will hear one of their ministers seriously tell them 
 that he views taking a walk on the Sabbath in the light of 
 an act of profanity, and will be the only people in existence 
 who can let a man talk downright nonsense without laugh- 
 ing at him. 
 
 I am not clever enough to be able to account for this 
 anomaly in the national character; I can only notice it by 
 way of necessary preparation for the appearance in my little 
 narrative of a personage not frequently seen in writing a 
 cheerful Scotchman. 
 
 In all other respects I found Mr. Playmore only negative- 
 ly remarkable. He was neither old nor young, neither hand- 
 some nor ugly ; he was personally not in the least like the 
 popular idea of a lawyer; and he spoke perfectly good En- 
 glish, touched with only the slightest possible flavor of a 
 Scotch accent. 
 
 " I have the honor to be an old friend of Mi*. Macallan," he 
 said, cordially shaking hands with me; "and I am honest- 
 ly happy to become acquainted with Mr. Macallan's wife. 
 Where will you sit ? Nearthe light ? You are young enough 
 not to be afraid of the daylight just yet. Is this your first 
 visit to Edinburgh ? Pray let me make it as pleasant to you 
 as I can. I shall be delighted to present Mrs. Playmore to 
 you. We are staying in Edinburgh for a little while. The 
 Italian opera is here, and we have a box for to-night. Will 
 you kindly waive all ceremony, and dine with us and go to 
 the music afterward ?" 
 
 " You are very kind," I answered. "But I have some anx- 
 ieties just now which will make me a very poor companion 
 for Mrs. Playmore at the opera. My letter to you mentions, 
 I think, that I have to ask your advice on matters which are 
 of very serious importance to me." 
 
 "Does it?" he rejoined. "To tell you the truth, I have 
 not read the letter through. I saw your name in it, and I 
 gathered from your message that you wished to see me 
 here. I sent my note to your hotel and then went on 
 with something else. Pray pardon me. Is this a profes- 
 sional consultation ? For your own sake, I sincerely hope 
 not !" 
 
 " It is hardly a professional consultation, Mr. Playmore. I 
 find myself in a very painful position ; and I come to you to
 
 THE LAW AXI> THE I.ADY. 241 
 
 advise me, under very unusual circumstances. I shall sur- 
 prise you very much when you hear what I have to say ; 
 and I am afraid I shall occupy more than my fair share of 
 your time." 
 
 "I and my time are entirely at your disposal," he said. 
 "Tell me what I can do for you and tell it in your own 
 way." 
 
 The kindness of this language was more than matched by 
 the kindness of his manner. I spoke to him freely and fully 
 I told him my strange story without the slightest reserve. 
 
 He showed the varying impressions that I produced on 
 his mind without the slightest concealment. My separation 
 from .Eustace distressed him. My resolution to dispute the 
 Scotch Verdict, and my unjust suspicions of Mrs. Heauly, 
 first amused, then surprised him. It was not, however, un- 
 til I had described my extraordinary interview with Misi-rri- 
 mus Dexter, and my hardly less remarkable conversation 
 with Lady Clarinda, that I produced my greatest effect on 
 the lawyer's mind. I saw him change color for the first 
 time. He started, and muttered to himself, as if he had com- 
 pletely forgotten me. " Good God !" I heard him say " can 
 it be possible? Does the truth lie t/iat way after all?" 
 
 I took the liberty of interrupting him. I had no idea of 
 allowing him to keep his thoughts to himself. 
 
 " I seem to have surprised you ?" I said. 
 
 He started at the sound of my voice. 
 
 "I beg ten thousand pardons!" he exclaimed. "You 
 have not only surprised me you have opened an entirely 
 new view to my mind. I see a possibility, a really startling 
 possibility, in connection with the poisoning at Gleninch, 
 which never occurred to me until the present moment. This 
 is a nice state of things," he added, falling back again into 
 his ordinary humor. " Here is the client leading the law- 
 yer. My dear Mrs. Eustace, which is it do you want my 
 advice ? or do I want yours ?" 
 
 " May I hear the new idea ?" I asked. 
 
 " Not just yet, if you will excuse ane," he answered. 
 "Make allowances for my professional caution. I don't 
 want to be professional with You my great anxiety is to 
 avoid it. But the lawyer gets the better of the man, and 
 refuses to be suppressed. I really hesitate to realize what 
 is passing in my own mind without some further inquiry. 
 L2
 
 '242 THE LAW AXD THE LADY. 
 
 1 t>% 
 
 Do me a great favor. Let us go over a part of the ground 
 again, and let me ask you some questions as we proceed. 
 Do you feel any objection to obliging me in this matter?" 
 
 "Certainly not, Mr. Playmore. How far shall we go back?" 
 
 " To your visit to Dexter with your mother-in-law. When 
 you first asked him if he had any ideas of his own on the 
 subject of Mrs. Eustace Macallan's death, did I understand 
 you to say that he looked at you suspiciously ?" 
 
 " Very suspiciously." 
 
 " And his face cleared up again when you told him that 
 your question^was only suggested by what you had read in 
 the Report of the Trial ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 He drew a slip of paper out of the drawer in his desk, 
 dipped his pen in the ink, considered a little, and placed a 
 chair for me close at his side. 
 
 " The lawyer disappears," he said, " and the man resumes 
 his proper place. There shall be no professional mysteries 
 between you and me. As your husband's old friend, Mrs. 
 Eustace, I feel no common interest in you. I see a serious 
 necessity for warning you before it is too late ; and I can 
 only do so to any good purpose by running a risk on which 
 few men in my ulace would venture. Personally and pro- 
 fessionally, I am going to trust you though I am a Scotch- 
 man and a lawyer. Sit here, and look over my shoulder 
 while I make my notes. You will see what is passing in my 
 mind if you see what I write." 
 
 I sat down by him, and looked over his shoulder, without 
 the smallest pretense of hesitation. 
 \He began to write as follows : 
 
 "The poisoning at Gleninch. Queries: In what position 
 doeaMiserrimus Dexter stand toward the poisoning ? And 
 whal does he (presumably) know about that matter? 
 
 " He has ideas which are secrets. He suspects that he 
 has betrayed them, or that they have been discovered in 
 some way inconceivable to himself. He is palpably relieved 
 when he finds that this is not the case." 
 
 The pen stopped ; and the questions went on, 
 
 " Let us advance to your second visit," said Mr. Playmore, 
 " when you saw Dexter alone. Tell me again what he did, 
 and how he looked, when you informed him that you were 
 not satisfied with the Scotch Verdict."
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 243 
 
 I repeated wb.it I have already written in these pages. 
 The pen went back to the paper again, and added these 
 lines : 
 
 " He hears nothing more remarkable than that a person 
 visiting him, who is interested in the case, refuses to accept 
 the verdict at the Macallan Trial as a final verdict, and pro- 
 poses to reopen the inquiry. "What does he do upon that ? 
 
 " He exhibits all the symptoms of a panic of terror ; he 
 sees himself in some incomprehensible danger^ he is frantic 
 at one moment and servile at the next ; he must and will 
 know what this disturbing person really means. And when 
 he is informed on that point, he first turns pale and doubts 
 the evidence of his own senses; and next, with nothing said 
 to justify it, gratuitously accuses his visitor of suspecting 
 somebody. Query here : When a small sum of money is 
 missing in a household, and the servants in general are called 
 together to be informed of the circumstance, what do we 
 think of the one servant in particular who speaks first, and 
 who says, 'Do you suspect me.*"" 
 
 He laid down the pen again. 
 
 "Is that right?" he asked. 
 
 I began to see the end to which the notes were drift- 
 ing. Instead of answering his question, I entreated him to 
 enter into the explanations that were still wanting to con- 
 vince my own mind. He held up a warning forefinger, and 
 stopped me. 
 
 " Not yet," he said. " Once again, am I right so far?" 
 
 " Quite right." 
 
 " Very well. Now tell me what happened next. Don't 
 mind repeating yourself. Give me all the details-, one after 
 another, to the end." 
 
 I mentioned all the details exactly as I remembered thorn. 
 Mr. Playmore returned to his writing for the third and lust 
 time. Thus the notes ended : 
 
 " He is indirectly assured that he at least is not the person 
 suspected. He sinks back in his chair; he draws a long 
 breath ; he asks*to be left a while by himself, under the pre- 
 tense that the subject excites him. When the visitor re- 
 turns, Dexter has been drinking in the interval. The visitor 
 resumes the subject not Dexter. The visitor is convinced 
 that Mrs. Eustace Macallan died by the hand of a poisoner, 
 and openly says so. Dexter sinks back in his chair like a
 
 244 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 man fainting. What is the horror that has got possession 
 of him ? It is easy to understand if we call it guilty horror; 
 it is beyond all understanding if we call it any thing else. 
 And how does it leave him ? He flies from one extreme to 
 another ; he is indescribably delighted when he discovers 
 that the visitor's suspicions are all fixed on an absent per- 
 son. And then, and then only, he takes refuge in the decla- 
 ration that he has been of one mind with his visitor, in the 
 matter of suspicion, from the first. These are facts. To 
 what plain conclusion do they point ?" 
 
 He shut up his notes, and, steadily watching my face, 
 waited for me to speak first. 
 
 " I understand you, Mr. Playmore," I began, impetuously. 
 " You believe that Mr. Dexter " 
 
 His warning forefinger stopped me there. 
 
 " Tell me," he interposed, " what Dexter said to you when 
 he was so good as to confirm your opinion of poor Mrs. 
 Beauly." 
 
 " He said, ' There isn't a doubt about it. Mrs. Beauly 
 poisoned her.' " 
 
 " I can't do better than follow so good an example with 
 one trifling difference. I say too, There isn't a doubt about 
 it. Dexter poisoned her." 
 
 " Are you joking, Mr. Playmore ?" 
 
 " I never was more in earnest in my life. Your rash visit 
 to Dexter, and your extraordinary imprudence in taking him 
 into your confidence, have led to astonishing results. The 
 light which the whole machinery of the Law was unable to 
 throw on the poisoning case at Gleninch has been accident- 
 ally let in^Dn it by a Lady who refuses to listen to reason 
 and who insists on having her own way. Quite incredible, 
 and nevertheless quite true." 
 
 "Impossible!" I exclaimed. 
 
 " What is impossible ?" he asked, coolly. 
 
 " That Dexter poisoned my husband's first wife." 
 
 " And why is that impossible, if you please ?" 
 
 I began to be almost enraged with Mr. Playmore. 
 
 "Can you ask the .question?" I replied, indignantly. "I 
 have told you that I heard him speak of her in terms of re- 
 spect and affection of which any woman might be proud. 
 He lives in the memory of her. I owe his friendly reception 
 of me to some resemblance which he fancies he sees between
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. '-' t.~> 
 
 my figure and hers. I have seen tears in his eyes, I have 
 heard his voice falter and fail him, when he spoke of her. 
 lie may be the falsest of men in all besides, but he is true 
 to her he has not misled me in that one thing. There are 
 signs that never deceive a woman when a man is talking to 
 her of what is really near his heart: I saw those signs. It 
 is as true that I poisoned her as that he did. I am ashamed 
 to set my opinion against yours, Mr. Playmore ; but I really 
 can not help it. I declare I am almost angry with you." 
 
 He seemed to be pleased, instead of offended, by the bold 
 manner in which I expressed myself. 
 
 "My dear Mrs. Eustace, you have no reason to be angry 
 with me. In one respect, I entirely share your view with 
 this difference, that I go a little farther than you do." 
 
 " I don't understand you." 
 
 " You will understand me directly. You describe Dexter's 
 feeling for the late Mrs. Eustace as a happy mixture of re- 
 spect and affection. I can tell you it was a much warmer 
 feeling toward her than that. I have my information from 
 f he poor lady herself who honored me with her confidence 
 So 1 friendship for the best part of her life. Before she mar- 
 ried Mr. Macallan she kept it a secret from him, and you 
 had better keep it a secret too Miserrimus Dexter was in 
 love with her. Miserrimus Dexter asked her deformed as 
 he was, seriously asked her to be his wife." 
 
 "And in the face of that," I cried, " you say that he poison- 
 ed her!" 
 
 "I do. I see no other conclusion possible, after what hap- 
 pened during your visit to him. You all but frightened 
 him into a fainting fit. What was he afraid of?" 
 I tried hard to find an answer to that. I even embarked 
 on an answer without quite knowing where my own words 
 might lead me. 
 
 "Mr. Dexter is an old and true friend of my husband," I 
 began. "When he heard me say I was not satisfied with 
 the Verdict, he might have felt alarmed " 
 
 "lie might have felt alarmed at the possible consequences 
 to your husband of reopening the inquiry," said Mr. Play- 
 more, ironically finishing the sentence for me. " Rather far- 
 fetched, Mrs. Eustace; and not very consistent with your 
 faith in your husband's innocence. Clear your mind of one 
 mistake," he continued, seriously, "which may fatally mislead
 
 246 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 you if you persist in pursuing your present course. Miser- 
 rimus Dexter, you may take ray word for it, ceased to be 
 your husband's friend on the day when your husband mar- 
 ried his first wife. Dexter has kept up appearances, I grant 
 you, both in public and in private. His evidence in his 
 friend's favor at the Trial was given with the deep feeling 
 which every body expected from him. Nevertheless, I firmly 
 believe, looking under the surface, that Mr. Macallan has no 
 bitterer enemy living than Miserrimus Dexter." 
 
 He turned -me cold. I felt that here, at least, he was right. 
 My husband had wooed and won the woman who had re- 
 fused Dexter's oifer of marriage. Was Dexter the man to 
 forgive that? My own experience answered me, and said, 
 No. 
 
 "Bear in mind what I have told you," Mr. Playmove pro- 
 ceeded. "And now let us get on to your own position in 
 this matter, and to the interests that you have at stake. 
 Try to adopt my point of view for the moment ; and let us 
 inquire what chance we have of making any farther advance 
 toward a discovery of the truth. It is one thing to be mor- 
 ally convinced (as I am) that Miserrimus Dexter is the m^j, 
 who ought to have been tried for the murder at Gleninch; 
 and it is another thing, at this distance of time, to lay our 
 hands on the plain evidence which can alone justify any thing 
 like a public assertion of his guilt. There, as I see it, is the 
 insuperable difficulty in the case. Unless I am completely 
 mistaken, the question is now narrowed to this plain issue: 
 The public assertion of your husband's innocence depends 
 entirely on the public assertion of Dexter's guilt. How are 
 you to arrive at that result ? There is not a particle of evi- 
 dence against him. You can only convict Dexter on Dex- 
 ter's own confession. Are you listening to me ?" 
 
 I was listening, most unwillingly. If he were right, things 
 had indeed come to that terrible pass. But I could not 
 with all my respect for his superior knowledge and experi- 
 ence I could not persuade myself that he was right. And 
 I owned it, with the humility which I really felt. 
 
 He smiled good-humoredly. 
 
 "At any rate," he said, "you will admit that Dexter has 
 not freely opened his mind to you thus far? He is still 
 keeping something from your knowledge which you are in- 
 terested in discovering?"
 
 THE LAW 'AND THE LADY. 217 
 
 "Yes. I admit that." 
 
 "Very good. What applies to your view of the case ap- 
 plies to mine. I say, he is keeping from you the confession 
 of his guilt. You say, he is keeping from you information 
 which may fasten the guilt on some other person. Let us 
 start from that point. Confession, or information, how are you 
 to get at what he is now withholding from you ? What influ- 
 ence can you bring to bear on him when you see him again ?" 
 
 " Surely I might persuade him ?" 
 
 " Certainly. And if persuasion fail what then ? Do you 
 think you can entrap him into speaking out ? or terrify him 
 into speaking out ?" 
 
 " If you will look at your notes, Mr. Playmore, you will see 
 that I have already succeeded in terrifying him though I 
 am only a woman, and though I didn't mean to do it." 
 
 "Very well answered. You mark the trick. What you 
 have done once you think you can do again. Well, as you 
 are determined to try the experiment, it can do you no harm 
 to know a little more of Dexter's character and temperament 
 than you know now. Suppose we apply for information to 
 somebody who can help us?" 
 
 I started, and looked round the room. He made me do it 
 he spoke as if the person who was to help us was close at 
 our elbows. 
 
 " Don't be alarmed," he said. " The oracle is silent ; and 
 the oracle is here." 
 
 He unlocked one of the drawers of his desk; produced a 
 bundle of letters, and picked out one. 
 
 " When we were arranging your husband's defense," he 
 said, " we felt some difficulty about including Miserrimus 
 Dexter among our witnesses. We had not the slightest sus- 
 picion of him, I need hardly tell you. But we were all afraid 
 of his eccentricity; and some among us even feared that the 
 excitement of appearing at the Trial might drive him com- 
 pletely out of his mind. In this emergency we applied to a 
 doctor to help us. Under some pretext, which I forget now, 
 we introduced him to Dexter. And in due course of time 
 we received his report. Here it is." 
 
 He opened the letter, and marking a certain passage in it 
 with a pencil, handed it to me. 
 
 "Read the lines which I have marked," he said; "they 
 will be quite sufficient for our purpose/'
 
 248 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 >%\ 
 
 I read these words : 
 
 " Summing up the results of my observation, I may give it 
 as my opinion that there is undoubtedly latent insanity in this 
 case, but that no active symptoms of madness have present- 
 ed themselves as yet. You may, I think, produce him at the 
 Trial, without fear of consequences. He may say and do all 
 sorts of odd things ; but he has his mind under the control 
 of his will, and you may trust his self-esteem to exhibit him 
 in the character of a substantially intelligent witness. 
 f .>," As to the future, I am, of course, not able to speak posi- 
 tively. I can only state my views. 
 
 ^"That he will end in madness (if he live), I entertain little 
 or no doubt. The question of when the madness will show 
 itself depends entirely on the state of his health. His nerv- 
 ous system is highly sensitive, and there are signs that his 
 way of life has already damaged it. If he conquer the bad 
 habits to which I have alluded in an earlier part of ray re- 
 port, and if he pass many hours of every day quietly in the 
 open air, he may last as a sane man for years to come. If 
 he persist in his present way of life or, in other words, if 
 further mischief occur to that sensitive nervous system his 
 lapse into insanity must infallibly take place when the mis- 
 chief has reached its culminating point. Without warning 
 to himself o* to others, the whole mental structure will give 
 way ; and, at a moment's notice, while he is acting as quietly 
 or speaking as intelligently as at his best time, the man will 
 drop (if I may use the expression) into madness or idiocy. 
 In tMther case, when the catastrophe has happened, it is only 
 due to his friends to add that they can (as I believe) enter- 
 tain no hope of his cure. The balance once lost, will be lost 
 for life." 
 
 There it ended. Mr. Playmore put the letter back in his 
 drawer. 
 
 "You have just read the opinion of one of our highest liv- 
 ing authorities," he said. "Does Dexter strike you as a like- 
 ly man to give his nervous system a chance of recovery? 
 Do you see no obstacles and no perils in your way ?" 
 
 My silence answered him. 
 
 "Suppose you go back to Dexter," he proceeded. "And 
 suppose that" the doctor's opinion exaggerates the peril in 
 his case. What are you to do? The last time you saw him, 
 you had the immense advantage of taking him by surprise.
 
 THE I-AAV AND THE LADY. 249 
 
 Those sensitive nerves of his gave way, and lie betrayed the 
 fear that you aroused in him. Can you take him by surprise 
 again? Not you! He is prepared for you now; and he 
 will be on his guard. If you encounter nothing worse, you 
 will have his cunning to deal with next. Are you his match 
 at that? But for Lady Clarinda he would have hopelessly 
 misled you on the subject of Mrs. Beauly." 
 
 There was no answering this, either. I was foolish enough 
 to try to answer it, for all that. 
 
 "He told me the truth so far as he knew it," I rejoined. 
 "He really saw what he said he saw in the corridor at 
 Gleninch." 
 
 " He told you the truth," returned Mr. Playmore, " because 
 he was cunning enough to see that the truth would help him 
 in irritating your suspicions. You don't really believe that 
 lie shared your suspicions?" 
 
 " Why not?" I said. "He was as ignorant of what Mrs. 
 Beauly was really doing on that night as I was until I met 
 Lady Clarinda. It remains to be seen whether he will not 
 be as much astonished as I was when I tell him what Lady 
 Clarinda told me." 
 
 This smart reply produced an effect which I had not antic- 
 ipated. 
 
 To my surprise, Mr. Playmore abruptly dropped all further 
 discussion on his side. He appeared to despair of convincing 
 me, and he owned it indirectly in his next words. 
 
 "Will nothing that I can say to you," he asked, " induce 
 you to think as I think in this matter?" 
 
 " I have not your ability or your experience," I answered. 
 "I am sorry to say I can't think as you think." 
 
 " And you arc really determined to see Miserrimus Dexter 
 again ?" 
 
 "I have engaged myself to see him again." 
 
 lie waited a little, and thought over it. 
 
 "You have honored me by asking for my advice," he said. 
 "I earnestly advise you, Mrs. Eustace, to break your engage- 
 ment. I go even further than that I entreat you not to see 
 Dexter again." 
 
 Just what my mother-in-law had said ! just what Benjamin 
 an-d Major Fitz-David had said ! They were all against me. 
 And still I held out. I wonder, when I look back at it, at my 
 own obstinacy. I am almost ashamed to relate that I made
 
 250 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 Mr. Play-more no reply. He waited, still looking at me. I 
 felt irritated by that fixed look. I arose, and stood before 
 him with my eyes on the floor. 
 
 He arose in his turn. He understood that the conference 
 was over. 
 
 "Well, well," he said, with a kind of sad good-humor, "I 
 suppose it is unreasonable of me to expect that a young 
 woman like you should share any opinion with an old lawyer 
 like me. Let me only remind you that our conversation 
 must remain strictly confidential for the present; and then 
 let us change the subject. Is there any thing that I can do 
 for you ? Are you alone in Edinburgh ?" 
 
 " No. I am traveling with an old friend ,of mine, who has 
 known me from childhood." 
 
 "And do you stay here to-morrow?" 
 
 "I think so." 
 
 "Will you do me one favor? Will you think over what 
 has passed between us, and will you come back to me in the 
 morning?" 
 
 "Willingly, Mr. Playmore, if it is only to thank you again 
 for your kindness." 
 
 On that understanding we parted. He sighed the cheer- 
 ful man sighed, as he opened the door for me. Women are 
 contradictory creatures. That sigh affected me more than 
 all his arguments. I felt myself blush for my own head- 
 strong resistance to him as I took my leave and turned away 
 into the street. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 GLENINCH. 
 
 "AHA!" said Benjamin, complacently. "So the lawyer 
 thinks, as I do, that you will be highly imprudent if you go 
 back to Mr. Dexter ? A hard-headed, sensible man the law- 
 yer, no doubt. You will listen to Mr. Playmore, won't you, 
 though you wouldn't listen to me?" 
 
 (I had of course respected Mr. Playmore's confidence in 
 me when Benjamin and I met on my return to the hotel. 
 Not a word relating to the lawyer's horrible suspicion of 
 Miserrimus Dexter had passed my lips.)
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 251 
 
 " You must forgive me, my old friend," I said, answering 
 Benjamin. "I am afraid it has come to this try as I may, 
 I can listen to nobody who advises me. On our way here I 
 honestly meant to be guided by Mr. Playmore we should 
 never have taken this long journey if I had not honestly 
 meant it. I have tried, tried hard to be a teachable, reason- 
 able woman. But there is something in me that won't be 
 taught. I am afraid I shall go back to Dexter." 
 
 Even Benjamin lost all patience with me this time. 
 
 "What is bred in the bone," he said, quoting the old prov- 
 erb, " will never come out of the flesh. In years gone by, 
 you were the most obstinate child that ever made a mess in 
 a nursery. Oh, dear me, we might as well have stayed in 
 London." 
 
 " No," I replied, "JQOW we have traveled to Edinburgh, 
 we will see something (interesting to me at any rate) which 
 we should never have seen if w.e had not left London. My 
 husband's country-house is within a few miles of us here. 
 To-morrow we will go to Gleninch." 
 
 "Where the poor lady was poisoned?" asked Benjamin, 
 with a look of dismay. " You mean that place ?" 
 
 " Yes. I want to see the room in which she died ; I want 
 to go all over the house." 
 
 Benjamin crossed his hands resignedly on his lap. "I try 
 to understand the new generation," said the old man, sadly ; 
 "but I can't manage it. The new generation beats me." 
 
 I sat down to write to Mr. Playmore about the visit to 
 Gleninch. The house in which the tragedy had occurred 
 that had blighted my husband's life was, to my mind, the 
 most interesting house on the habitable globe. The prospect 
 of visiting Gleninch had, indeed (to tell the truth), strongly 
 influenced my resolution to consult the Edinburgh lawyer. 
 I sent my note to Mr. Playmore by a messenger, and received 
 the kindest reply in return. If I would wait until the after- 
 noon, he would get the day's business done, and would take 
 us to Gleninch in his own carriage. 
 
 Benjamin's obstinacy in its own quiet way, and on cer- 
 tain occasions only was quite a match for mine. He had 
 privately determined, as one of the old generation, to have 
 nothing to do with Gleninch. Not a word on the subject 
 escaped him until Mr. Playmore's carriage was at the hotel 
 door. At that appropriate moment Benjamin remembered
 
 252 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 an old friend of his in Edinburgh. "Will you please to ex- 
 cuse me, Valeria ? My friend's name is Saunders ; and he 
 will take it unkindly of me if I don't dine with him to-day." 
 
 Apart frdm the associations that I connected with it, there 
 was nothing to interest a traveler at Gleninch. 
 
 The country around was pretty and well cultivated, and 
 nothing more. The park was, to an English eye, wild and 
 badly kept. The house had been built within the last sev- 
 enty or eighty years. Outside, it was as bare of all orna- 
 ment as a factory, and as gloomily heavy in effect as a prison. 
 Inside, the deadly dreariness, the close, oppressive solitude 
 of a deserted dwelling wearied the eye and weighed on the 
 mind, from the roof to the basement. The house had been 
 sjiut up since the time of the Trial. A lonely old couple, 
 man and wife, had the keys and the charge of it. The man 
 shook his head in silent and sorrowful disapproval of our in- 
 trusion when Mr. Playmore ordered him to open the doors 
 and shutters, and let the light in on the dark, deserted place. 
 Fires were burning in the library and the picture-gallery, to 
 preserve the treasures which they contained from the damp. 
 It was not easy, at first, to look at the cheerful blaze with- 
 out fancying that the inhabitants of the house must surely 
 come in and warm themselves. Ascending to the upper 
 floor, I saw the rooms made familiar to me by the Report of 
 the Trial. I entered the little study, with the old books on 
 the shelves, and the key still missing from the locked door 
 of communication with the bedchamber. I looked into the 
 room in which the unhappy mistress of Gleninch had suffered 
 and died. The bed was left in its place ; the sofa on which 
 the nurse had snatched her intervals of repose was at its 
 foot;- the Indian cabinet, in which the crumpled paper with 
 the grains of arsenic had been found, still held its little col- 
 lection of curiosities. I moved on its pivot the invalid-table 
 on which she had taken her meals and written her poems, 
 poor soul. The place was dreary and dreadful; the heavy 
 air felt as if it were still burdened with its horrid load of 
 misery and distrust. I was glad to get out (after a passing 
 glance at the room which Eustace had occupied in those 
 days)*nto the Guests' Corridor. There was the bedroom, 
 at the door of which Miserrimus Dexter had waited and 
 watched. There was the oaken floor along which he had
 
 STOPPED, AND LOOKED AT THE DUST AND ASHES, AT THE tROKEN CROCKERY 
 AND THE .OI,R IRON."
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 253 
 
 hopped, in his horrible way, following the footsteps of the 
 servant disguised in her mistress's clothes. Go where I 
 might, the ghosts of the dead and the absent were with me, 
 step by step. Go where I might, the lonely horror of the 
 house had its still and awful voice for Me: "I keep the se- 
 cret of the Poison ! I hide the mystery of the death !" 
 
 The oppression of the place became unendurable. I longed 
 for the pure sky and the free air. My companion noticed 
 and understood me. 
 
 " Come," he said. " We have had enough of the house. 
 Let us look at the grounds." 
 
 In the gray quiet of the evening we roamed about the 
 lonely gardens, and threaded our way through the rank, neg- 
 lected shrubberies. Wandering here and wandering there, 
 we drifted into the kitchen garden with one little patch still 
 sparely cultivated by the old man and his wife, and all the 
 rest a wilderness of weeds. Beyond the far end of the gar- 
 den, divided from it by a low paling of wood, there stretched 
 a patch of waste ground, sheltered on three sides by trees. 
 In one lost corner of the ground an object, common enough 
 elsewhere, attracted my attention here. The object was a 
 dust-heap. The great size of it, and the curious situation in 
 which it was placed, aroused a moment's languid curiosity in 
 me. I stopped, and looked at the dust and ashes, at the 
 broken crockery and the old iron. Here there was a torn 
 hat, and there some fragments of rotten old boots, and 
 scattered around a small attendant litter of torn paper and 
 frowzy rags. 
 
 " What are you looking at ?" asked Mr. Playmore. 
 
 "At nothing more remarkable than the dust-heap," I an- 
 swered. 
 
 " In tidy England, I suppose, you would have all that cart- 
 ed away out of sight," said the lawyer. " We don't mind in 
 Scotland, as long as the dust-heap is far enough away not to 
 be smelt at the house. Besides, some of it, sifted, comes in 
 usefully as manure for the garden. Here the place is de- 
 serted, and the rubbish in consequence has not been dis- 
 turbed. Every thing at Gleninch, Mrs. Eustace (the big 
 dust-heap included), is waiting for the new mistress to set it 
 to rights. One of these days you may be queen here who 
 knows?" 
 
 "I shall never see this place again," I said. 
 M
 
 254 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 " Never is a long day," returned my companion. " And 
 time has its surprises in store for all of us." 
 
 We turned away, and walked back in silence to the park 
 gate, at which the carriage was waiting. 
 
 On the return to Edinburgh, Mr. Playmore directed the 
 conversation to .topics entirely unconnected with my visit to 
 Gleninch. He saw that my mind stood in need of relief; 
 and he most good-naturedly, and successfully, exerted himself 
 to amuse me. It was not until we were close to the city 
 that he touched on the subject of my return to London. 
 
 " Have you decided yet on the day when you leave Edin- 
 burgh ?" he asked. 
 
 " We leave Edinburgh," I replied, " by the train of to- 
 morrow morning." 
 
 "Do you still see no reason to alter the opinions which 
 you expressed yesterday ? Does your speedy departure 
 mean that ?" 
 
 " I am afraid it does, Mr. Playmore. When I am an older 
 woman, I may be a wiser woman. In the mean time, I can 
 only trust to your indulgence if I still blindly blunder on 
 in my own way." 
 
 He smiled pleasantly, and patted my hand then changed 
 on a sudden, and looked at me gravely and attentively be- 
 fore he opened his lips again. 
 
 " This is my last opportunity of speaking to you before 
 you go," he said. " May I speak freely ?" 
 
 "As freely as you please, Mr. Playmore. Whatever you 
 may say to me will only add to my grateful sense of your 
 kindness." 
 
 "I have very little to say, Mrs. Eustace and that little 
 begins with a word of caution. You told me yesterday that, 
 when you paid your last visit to Miserrimus Dexter, you 
 went to him alone. Don't do that again. Take somebody 
 with you." 
 
 " Do you think I am in any danger, then ?" 
 
 " Not in the ordinary sense of the word. I only think 
 that a friend may be useful in keeping Dexter's audacity (he 
 is one of the most impudent men living) within proper lim- 
 its. Then, again, in case any thing worth remembering and 
 acting on should fall from him in his talk, a friend may be val- 
 uable as witness. In your place, I should have a witness with 
 me who could take notes but then I am a lawyer, and my
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 255 
 
 business is to make a fuss about trifles. Let me only say go 
 with a companion when you next visit Dexter; and be on your 
 guard against yourself when your talk turns on Mrs. Beauly." 
 
 " On my guard against myself? What do you mean ?" 
 
 " Practice, my dear Mrs. Eustace, has given me an eye for 
 the little weaknesses of human nature. You are (quite nat : 
 urally) disposed to be jealous of Mrs. Beauly ; and you are, 
 in consequence, not in full possession of your excellent com- 
 mon-sense when Dexter uses that lady as a means of blind- 
 folding you. Am I speaking too freely ?" 
 
 " Certainly not. It is very degrading to me to be jealous 
 of Mrs. Beauly. My vanity suffers dreadfully when I think 
 of it. But my common-sense yields to conviction. I dare 
 say you are right." 
 
 "I am delighted to find that we agree on one point," he 
 rejoined, drily. " I don't despair yet of convincing you in 
 that far more serious matter which is still in dispute between 
 us. And, what is more, if you will throw no obstacles in the 
 way, I look to Dexter himself to help me." 
 
 This aroused my curiosity. How Miserrimus Dexter could 
 help him, in that or in any other way, was a riddle beyond 
 my reading. 
 
 " You propose to repeat to Dexter all that Lady Clarinda 
 told you about Mrs. Beauly," he went on. "And you think 
 it is likely that Dexter will be overwhelmed, as you were 
 overwhelmed, when he hears the story. I am going to vent- 
 ure on a prophecy. I say that Dexter Avill disappoint you. 
 Far from showing any astonishment, he will boldly tell you 
 that you have been duped by a deliberately false statement 
 of facts, invented and set afloat, in her own guilty interests, 
 by Mrs. Beauly. Now tell me if he really try, in that way, 
 to renew your unfounded suspicion of an innocent woman, 
 will t/tat shake your confidence in your own opinion?" 
 
 "It will entirely destroy my confidence in my own opin- 
 ion, Mr. Playmore." 
 
 "Very good. I shall expect you to write to me, in any 
 rase ; and I believe we shall be of one mind before the Aveek 
 is out. Keep strictly secret all that I said to you yesterday 
 abotlt Dexter. Don't even mention my name when you see 
 him. Thinking of him as I think now, I would as soon touch 
 the hand of the hangman as the hand of that monster ! God 
 bk-ss you ! Good-by."
 
 256 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 So he said his farewell words, at the door of the hotel. 
 Kind, genial, clever but oh, how easily prejudiced, how 
 shockingly obstinate in holding to his own opinion! And 
 what an opinion ! I shuddered as I thought of it. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 MR. PLAYMOKE'S PROPHECY. 
 
 WE reached London between eight and nine in the even- 
 ing. Strictly methodical in all his habits, Benjamin had tel- 
 egraphed to his housekeeper, from Edinburgh, to have sup- 
 per ready for us by ten o'clock, and to send the cabman whom 
 he always employed to meet us at the station. 
 
 Ai-riving at the villa, we were obliged to wait for a mo- 
 ment to let a pony-chaise get by us before we could draw up 
 at Benjamin's door. The chaise passed very slowly, driven 
 by a rough-looking man, with a pipe in his mouth. But for 
 the man, I might have doubted whether the pony was quite 
 a stranger to me. As things were, I thought no more of the 
 matter. 
 
 Benjamin's respectable old housekeeper opened the gar- 
 den gate, and startled me by bursting into a devout ejacula- 
 tion of gratitude at the sight of her master. " The Lord be 
 praised, sir !" she cried ; " I thought you would never come 
 back !" 
 
 "Any thing wrong?" asked Benjamin, in his own impene- 
 trably quiet way. 
 
 The housekeeper trembled at the question, and answered 
 in these enigmatical words : 
 
 "My mind's upset, sir; and whether things are wrong or 
 whether things are right is more than I can say. Hours 
 ago, a strange man came in and asked" she stopped, as if 
 she were completely bewildered looked for a moment va- 
 cantly at her master and suddenly addressed herself to me. 
 " And asked," she proceeded, " when you was expected back, 
 ma'am. I told him what my master had telegraphed, and 
 the man says upon that, 'Wait a bit,' he says; 'I'm com- 
 ing back.' He came back in a minute or less ; and he car- 
 ried a Thing in his arms which curdled my blood it did ! 
 and set me shaking from the crown of my head to- the sole
 
 THE LAW AND TUB LADY. 257 
 
 of my foot. I know I ought to have stopped it; but I 
 couldn't stand upon my legs, much less put the man out of 
 the house. In he went, without * icith your leave,' or ' by your 
 leave,' Mr. Benjamin, sir in he went, with the Thing in his 
 arms, straight through to your library. And there It has 
 been all these hours. And there It is now. I've spoken to 
 the police ; but they wouldn't interfere ; and what to do 
 next is more than my poor head can tell. Don't you go in 
 by yourself, ma'am ! You'll be frightened out of your wits 
 you will !" 
 
 I persisted in entering the house, for all that. Aided by the 
 pony, I easily solved the mystery of the housekeeper's other- 
 wise unintelligible narrative. Passing through the dining- 
 room (where the supper-table was already laid for us), I 
 looked through the half-opened library door. 
 
 Yes, there was Aliserrimus Dexter, arrayed in his pink 
 jacket, fast asleep in Benjamin's favorite arm-chair ! No cov- 
 erlet hid his horrible deformity. Nothing was sacrificed to 
 conventional ideas of propriety in his extraordinary dress. 
 I could hardly wonder that the poor old housekeeper trem- 
 bled from head to foot when she spoke of him. 
 
 " Valeria," said Benjamin, pointing to the Portent in the 
 chair. " Which is it an Indian idol, or a man ?" 
 
 I have already described Miserrimus Dexter as possessing 
 the sensitive ear of a dog: he 'now showed that he also 
 slept the light sleep of a dog. Quietly as Benjamin had 
 spoken, the strange voice aroused him on the instant. He 
 rubbed his eyes, and smiled as innocently as a waking child. 
 
 "How do you do, Mrs. Valeria ?" he said. "I have had a 
 nice little sleep. You don't know how happy I am to see 
 you again. Who is this?" 
 
 He rubbed his eyes once more, and looked at Benjamin. 
 Not knowing what else to do in this extraordinary emer- 
 gency, I presented my visitor to the master of the house. 
 
 "Excuse my getting up, sir," said Miserrimus Dexter. "I 
 can't get up I have got no legs. You look as if you thought 
 I was occupying your chair? If I am committing an intru- 
 sion, be so good as to put your umbrella under me, and give 
 me a jerk. I shall fall on my hands, and I slm'n't be offend- 
 ed with you. I will submit to a tumble and a scolding but 
 please don't break my heart by sending me away. That 
 beautiful woman there can be very cruel sometimes, sir,
 
 258 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 when the fit takes her. She went away when I stood in the 
 sorest need of a little talk with her she went away, and 
 left me to my loneliness and my suspense. I am a poor de- 
 formed wretch, with a warm heart, and, perhaps, an insatia- 
 ble curiosity as well. Insatiable curiosity (have you ever 
 felt it ?) is a curse. I bore it until my brains began to boil 
 in my head ; and then I sent for my gardener, and made him 
 drive me here. I like being here. The air of your library 
 soothes me; the sight of Mrs. Valeria is balm to my wound- 
 ed heart. She has something to tell me something that I 
 am dying to hear. If she is not too tired after her journey, 
 and if you will let her tell it, I promise to have myself taken 
 away when she has done. Dear Mr. Benjamin, you look like 
 the refuge of the afflicted. I am afflicted. Shake hands like 
 a good Christian, and take me in." 
 
 He held out his hand. His soft blue eyes melted into an 
 expression of piteous entreaty. Completely stupefied by the 
 amazing harangue of which he had been made the object, 
 Benjamin took the offered hand, with the air of a man in a 
 dream. " I hope I see you well, sir," he said, mechanically 
 and then looked around at me, to know what he was to do 
 next. 
 
 " I understand Mr. Dexter," I whispered. " Leave him to 
 me." ' 
 
 Benjamin stole a last bewildered look at the Object in the 
 chair ; bowed to it, with the instinct of politeness which 
 never failed him ; and (still with the air of a man in a dream) 
 withdrew into the next room. 
 
 Left together, we looked at each other, for the first mo- 
 ment, in silence. 
 
 Whether I unconsciously drew on that inexhaustible store 
 of indulgence which a woman always keeps in reserve for a 
 man who owns that he has need of her, or whether, resent- 
 ing as I did Mr. Playmore's horrible suspicion of him, my 
 heart was especially accessible to feelings of compassion in 
 his unhappy case, I can not tell. I only know that I pitied 
 Miserrimtrs Dexter at that moment as I had never pitied 
 him yet; and that I spared him the reproof which I should 
 certainly have administered to any other man who had 
 taken the liberty of establishing himself, uninvited, in Ben- 
 jamin's house. 
 
 He was the first to speak.
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 259 
 
 " Lady Clarinda has destroyed your confidence in me !" 
 he began, wildly. 
 
 " Lady Clarinda has done nothing of the sort," I replied. 
 " She has not attempted to influence my opinion. I was 
 really obliged to leave London, as I told you." 
 
 He sighed, and closed his eyes contentedly, as if I had re- 
 lieved him of a heavy weight of anxiety. 
 
 " Be merciful to me," he said, " and tell me something 
 more. I have been so miserable in your absence." He sud- 
 denly opened his eyes again, and looked at me with an ap- 
 pearance of the greatest interest. "Are you very much fa- 
 tigued by traveling ?" he proceeded. " I am hungry for 
 news of what happened at the Major's dinner-party. Is it 
 cruel of me to tell you so, when you have not rested after 
 your journey? Only one question to-night, and .1 will 
 leave the rest till to-morrow. What did Lady Clarinda say 
 about Mrs'. Beauly ? All that you wanted to hear ?" 
 
 " All, and more," I answered. 
 
 "What? what? what?" he cried, wild with impatience 
 in a moment. 
 
 Mr.Playmore's last prophetic words were vividly present 
 to my mind. He had declared, in the most positive manner, 
 that Dexter would persist in misleading me, and would show 
 no signs of astonishment when I repeated what Lady Clarin- 
 da had told me of Mrs. Beauly. I resolved to put the law- 
 yer's prophecy so far as the question of astonishment was 
 concerned to the sharpest attainable test. I said not a 
 word to Miserrimus Dexter in the way of preface or prepara- 
 tion : I burst on him with my news as abruptly as possible. 
 
 " The person you saw in the corridor was not Mrs. Beauly," 
 I said. "It was the maid, dressed in her mistress's cloak 
 and hat. Mrs. Beauly herself was not in the house at all. 
 Mrs. Beauly herself was dancing at a masked ball in Edin- 
 burgh. There is what the maid told Lady Clarinda ; and 
 there is what Lady Clarinda told me." 
 
 In the absorbing interest of the moment, I poured out those 
 words one after another as fast as they would pass my lips. 
 Miserrimus Dexter completely falsified the lawyer's predic- 
 tion, lie shuddered under the shock. His eyes opened 
 wide with amazement. " Say it again !" he cried. " I can't 
 take it all in at once. You stun me." 
 
 I was more than contented with this result I triumphed
 
 200 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 in my victory. For once, I had really some reason to feel 
 satisfied with myself. I had taken the Christian and merci- 
 ful side in my discussion with -Mr. Play more; and I had won 
 my reward. I could sit in the same room with Miserrimus 
 Dexter, and feel the blessed conviction that I was not breath- 
 ing the same air with a poisoner. Was it not worth the vis- 
 it to Edinburgh to have made sure of that ? 
 
 In repeating, at his own desire, what I had already said to 
 him, I took care to add the details which made Lady Clarin- 
 da's narrative coherent and credible. He listened through- 
 out with breathless attention here and there repeating the 
 words after me, to impress them the more surely and the 
 more deeply on his mind. 
 
 " What is to be said ? what is to be done ?" he asked, 
 with a look of blank despair. " I can't disbelieve it. From 
 first to last, strange as it is, it sounds true." 
 
 (How would Mr. Playmore have felt if he had heard those 
 words? I did him the justice to believe that he would have 
 felt heartily ashamed of himself.) 
 
 "There is nothing to be said," I rejoined, " except that 
 Mrs. Beauly is innocent, and that you and I have done her a 
 grievous wrong. Don't you agree with me ?" 
 
 "I entirely agree with you," he answered, without an in- 
 stant's hesitation. " Mrs. Beauly is an innocent woman. 
 The defense at the Trial was the right defense after all." 
 
 He folded his arms complacently ; he looked perfectly sat- 
 isfied to leave the matter there. 
 
 I was not of his mind. To my own amazement, I now 
 found myself the least reasonable person of the two ! 
 
 Miserrimus Dexter (to use the popular phrase) had given 
 me more than I had bargained for. He had not only done 
 all that I had anticipated in the way of falsifying Mr. Play- 
 more's prediction he had actually advanced beyond my 
 limits. I could go the length of recognizing Mrs. Beauly's 
 innocence ; but at that point I stopped. If the Defense at 
 the Trial were the right defense, farewell to all hope of as- 
 serting my husband's innocence. I held to that hope as I 
 held to my love and my life. 
 
 " Speak for yourself," I said. " My opinion of the Defense 
 remains unchanged." 
 
 He started, and knit his brows as if I had disappointed and 
 displeased him.
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 261 
 
 " Does that mean that you are determined to go on ?" 
 
 " It does." 
 
 He was downright angry with me. He cast his customary 
 politeness to the winds. 
 
 "Absurd! impossible!" he cried, contemptuously. "You 
 have yourself declared that we wronged an innocent woman 
 when we suspected Mrs. Beauly. Is there any one else whom 
 we can suspect ? It is ridiculous to ask the question. There 
 is no alternative left but to accept the facts as they are, and 
 to stir no farther in the matter of the poisoning at Gleninch. 
 It is childish to dispute plain conclusions. You must give 
 up." 
 
 " You may be angry with me if you will, Mr. Dexter. 
 Neither your anger nor your arguments will make me give 
 up." 
 
 He controlled himself by an effort he was quiet and po- 
 lite again when he next spoke to me. 
 
 " Very well. Pardon me for a moment if I absorb my- 
 self in my own thoughts. I want to do something which I 
 have not done yet." 
 
 " What may that be, Mr. Dexter ?" 
 
 " I am going to put myself into Mrs. Beauly's skin, and to 
 think with Mrs. Beauly's mind. Give me a minute. Thank 
 you." 
 
 What did he mean ? what new transformation of him was 
 passing before my eyes ? Was there ever such a puzzle of a 
 man as this ? Who that saw him now, intently pursuing his 
 new train of thought, would have recognized him as the 
 childish creature who had awoke so innocently, and had aston- 
 ished Benjamin by the infantine nonsense which he talked ? 
 It is said, and said truly, that there are many sides to every 
 human character. Dexter's many sides were developing 
 themselves at such a rapid rate of progress that they were 
 already beyond my counting. 
 
 He lifted his head, and fixed a look of keen inquiry on me. 
 
 " I have come out of Mrs. Beauly's skin," he announced. 
 " And I have arrived at this result : We are two impetuous 
 people ; and we have been a little hasty in rushing at a con- 
 clusion." 
 
 lie stopped. I said nothing. Was the shadow of a doubt 
 of him beginning to rise in my mind ? I waited, and listened. 
 
 " I am as fully satisfied as ever of the truth of what Lady 
 M _>
 
 262 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 Clarinda told you," he proceeded. " But I see, on consider- 
 ation, what I failed to see at the time. The story admits of 
 two interpretations one on the surface, and another under 
 the surface. I look under the surface, in your interests ; and 
 I say, it is just possible that Mrs. Beauly may have been cun- 
 ning enough to forestall suspicion, and to set up an Alibi." 
 
 I am ashamed to own that I did not understand what he 
 meant by the last word Alibi. He saw that I was not fol- 
 lowing him, and spoke out more plainly. 
 
 " Was the maid something more than her mistress's pas- 
 sive accomplice ?" he said. " Was she the Hand that her 
 mistress used ? Was she on her way to give the first dose 
 of poison when she passed me in the corridor? Did Mrs. 
 Beauly spend the night in Edinburgh so as to have her de- 
 fense ready, if suspicion fell upon her?" 
 
 My shadowy doubt of him became substantial doubt when 
 I heard that. Had I absolved him a little too readily ? Was 
 he really trying to renew my suspicions of Mrs. Beauly, as 
 Mr. Playmore had foretold? This time I was obliged to an- 
 swer him. In doing so, I unconsciously employed one of 
 the phrases which the lawyer had used to me during my 
 first interview with him, 
 
 "That sounds rather far-fetched, Mr. Dexter," I said.. 
 
 To my relief, he made no attempt to defend the new view 
 that he had advanced. 
 
 " It is far-fetched," he admitted. " When I said it was 
 just possible though I didn't claim much for my idea I 
 said more for it perhaps than it deserved. Dismiss my view 
 as ridiculous ; what are you to do next ? If Mrs. Beauly is 
 not the poisoner (either by herself or by her maid), who is ? 
 She is innocent, and Eustace is innocent. Where is the 
 other person whom you can suspect? Have I poisoned 
 her?" he cried, with his eyes flashing, and his voice rising 
 to- its highest notes. "Do you, does any body, suspect Me? 
 I loved her; I adored her; I have never been the same man 
 since her death. Hush ! I will trust you with a secret. 
 (Don't tell your husband; it might be the destruction of 
 our friendship.) I would have married her, before she met 
 with Eustace, if she would have taken me. When the doc- 
 tors told me she had died poisoned ask Doctor Jerome 
 what I suffered ; he can tell you ! All through that horrible 
 night I was awake ; watching my opportunity until I found
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 2C3 
 
 ray way to her. I got into the room, and took my last 
 leave of the cold remains of the angel whom I loved. I cried 
 over her. I kissed her, for the first and last time. I stole 
 one little lock of her hair. I have worn it ever since ; I have 
 kissed it night and day. Oh, God ! the room comes back to 
 me ! the dead face comes back to me ! Look ! look !" 
 
 He tore from its place of concealment in his bosom a little 
 locket, fastened by a ribbon around his neck. He threw it to 
 me where I sat, and burst into a passion of tears. 
 
 A man in my place might have known what to do. Being 
 only a woman, I yielded to the compassionate impulse of the 
 moment. 
 
 I got up and crossed the room to him. I gave him back 
 bis locket, and put my hand, without knowing what I was 
 about, on the poor wretch's shoulder. "I am incapable of 
 suspecting you, Mr. Dexter," I said, gently. " Xo such idea 
 ever entered my head. I pity you from the bottom of my 
 heart." 
 
 He caught my hand in his, and devoured it with kisses. 
 His lips burned me like fire. He twisted himself suddenly in 
 the chair, and wound his arm around my waist. In the terror 
 and indignation of the moment, vainly struggling with him, 
 I cried out for help. 
 
 The door opened, and Benjamin appeared on the threshold. 
 Dexter let go his hold of me. 
 
 I ran to Benjamin, and prevented him from advancing into 
 the room. In all my long experience of my fatherly old 
 friend I had never seen him really angry yet. I saw him 
 more than angry, now. He was pale the patient, gentle old 
 man was pale with rage! I held him at the door with all 
 my strength. 
 
 "You can't lay your hand on a cripple," I said. "Send 
 for the man outside to take him away." 
 
 I drew Benjamin out of the room, and closed and locked 
 the library door. The housekeeper was in the dining-room. 
 I sent her out to call the driver of the pony-chaise into the 
 house. 
 
 The man came in the rough man whom I had noticed 
 when we were approaching the garden gate. Benjamin 
 opened the library door in stern silence. It was perhaps 
 unworthy of me, but I could not resist the temptation to 
 look in.
 
 264 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 Miserrimus Dexter had sunk down in the chair. The 
 rough man lifted his master with a gentleness that surprised 
 me. " Hide my face," I heard Dexter say to him, in broken 
 tones. He opened his coarse pilot-jacket, and hid his mas- 
 ter's head under it, and so went silently out with the de- 
 formed creature held to his bosom, like a woman sheltering 
 her child. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXYL 
 
 I PASSED a sleepless night. . 
 
 The outrage that had been offered to me was bad enough 
 in itself. But consequences were associated with it which 
 might affect me more seriously still. In so far as the attain- 
 ment of the one object of my life might yet depend on my 
 personal association with Miserrimus Dexter, an insurmount- 
 able obstacle appeared to be now placed in my way. Even 
 in my husband's interests, ought I to permit a man who had 
 grossly insulted me to approach me again ? Although I was 
 no prude, I recoiled from the thought of it. 
 
 I arose late, and sat down at my desk, trying to summon 
 energy enough to write to Mr. Playmore and trying in 
 vain. 
 
 Toward noon (while Benjamin happened to be out for a 
 little while) the housekeeper announced the arrival of an- 
 other strange visitor at the gate of the villa. 
 
 " It's a woman this time, ma'am or something like one," 
 said this worthy person, confidentially. "A great, stout, 
 awkward, stupid creature, with a man's hat on, and a man's 
 stick in her hand. She says she has got a note for you, and 
 she won't give it to any body but you. I'd better not let 
 her in had I?" 
 
 Recognizing the original of the picture, I astonished the 
 housekeeper by consenting to receive the messenger imme- 
 diately. 
 
 Ariel entered the room in stolid silence, as usual. But I 
 noticed a change in her which puzzled me. Her dull eyes 
 Avere red and bloodshot. Traces of tears (as I fancied) were 
 visible on her fat, shapeless cheeks. She crossed the room,
 
 THE LAW AXD THE LADY. 265 
 
 on her way to my chair, with a less determined tread than 
 was customary with her. Could Ariel (I asked myself) be 
 woman enough to cry ? "Was it within the limits of possi- 
 bility that Ariel should approach tne in sorrow and in fear ? 
 
 " I hear you have brought something for me ?" I said. 
 " Won't you sit down ?" 
 
 She handed me a letter without answering, and without 
 taking a chair. I opened, the envelope. The letter inside 
 was written by Miserrimus Dexter. It contained these lines : 
 
 " Try to pity me, if you have any pity left for a miserable 
 man ; I have bitterly expiated the madness of a moment. 
 If you could see me even you would own that my punish- 
 ment has been heavy enough. 'For God's sake, don't aban- 
 don me ! I was beside myself when I let the feeling that 
 you have awakened in me get the better of my control. It 
 shall never show itself again ; it shall be a secret that dies 
 with me. Can I expect you to believe this ? No. I won't 
 ask you to believe me ; I won't ask you to trust me in the 
 future. If you ever consent to see me again, let it be in the 
 presence of any third person whom you may appoint to pro- 
 tect you. I deserve that I will submit to it; I will wait 
 till time has composed your angry feeling against me. All 
 I ask now is leave to hope. Say to Ariel, 'I forgive him; 
 and one day I will let him see me again.' She will remember 
 it, for love of me. If you send her back without a message, 
 you send me to the mad-house. Ask her, if you don't believe 
 me. MISERRIMUS DEXTER." 
 
 I finished the strange letter, and looked at Ariel. 
 
 She stood .with her eyes on the floor, and held out to me 
 the thick walking-stick which she carried in her hand. 
 
 " Take the stick " were the first words she said to me." 
 
 "Why am I to take it?" I asked. 
 
 She struggled a little with her sluggishly working mind, 
 and slowly put her thoughts into words. 
 
 " You're angry with the Master," she said. "Take it out 
 on Me. Here's the stick. Beat me." 
 
 " Beat you !" I exclaimed. 
 
 " My back's broad," said the poor creature. " I won't 
 make a row. I'll bear it. Drat you, take the stick ! Don't 
 vex him. Whack it out on my back. Beat me"
 
 266 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 She roughly forced the stick into my hand ; she turned 
 her poor shapeless shoulders to me, waiting for the blow. 
 It was at once dreadful and touching to see her. The tears 
 rose in my eyes. I tried, gently and patiently, to reason 
 with her. Quite useless ! The idea of taking the Master's 
 punishment on herself was the one idea in her mind. " Don't 
 vex him" she repeated. " Beat me." 
 
 " What do you mean by ' vexing him ?' " I asked. 
 
 She tried to explain, and failed to find the words. She 
 showed me by imitation, as a savage might have shown me, 
 what she meant. Striding to the fire-place, she crouched on 
 the rug, and looked into the fire with a horrible vacant stare. 
 Then she clasped her hands over her forehead, and rocked 
 slowly to and fro, still staring into the tire. "There's how 
 he sits !" she said, with a sudden burst of speech. " Hours on 
 hours, there's how he sits ! Notices nobody. Cries about you" 
 
 The picture she presented recalled to my memory the Re- 
 port of Dexter's health, and the doctor's plain warning of 
 peril waiting for him in the future. Even if I could have 
 resisted Ariel, I must have yielded to the vague dread of 
 consequences which now shook me in secret. 
 
 " Don't do that !" I cried. She was still rocking herself 
 in imitation of the "Master," and still staring into the fire 
 with her hands to her head. "Get up, pray ! I am not an- 
 gry with him now. I forgive him." 
 
 She rose on her hands and knees, and waited, looking up 
 intently into my face. In that attitude more like a dog 
 than a human being she repeated her customary petition 
 when she wanted to fix words that interested her in her mind. 
 
 " Say it again !" 
 
 I did as she bade me. She was not satisfied., 
 
 "Say it as it is in the letter," she went on. "Say it as 
 the Master said it to Me." 
 
 I looked back at the letter, and repeated the form of mes- 
 sage contained in the latter part of it, word for word: "I 
 forgive.him; and one day I will let him see me again." 
 
 She sprang to her feet at a bound. For the first time since 
 she had entered the room her dull face began to break slow- 
 ly into light and life. 
 
 "That's it!" she cried. "Hear if I can say it, too; hear 
 if I've got it by heart." 
 
 Teaching her exactly as I should have taught a child, I 
 slowly fastened the message, word by word, on her mind.
 
 , THE LAW AND THE LADY. 267 
 
 " Now rest yourself," I said ; " and let me give you some- 
 thing to eat and drink after your long walk." 
 
 I might as well have- spoken to one of the chairs. She 
 snatched up her stick from the floor, and burst out with a 
 hoarse shout of joy. " I've got it by heart !" she cried. 
 " This will cool the Master's head ! Hooray !" She dashed 
 out into the passage like a wild animal escaping from its 
 cage. I was just in time to see her tear open the garden 
 gate, and set forth on her walk back at a pace which made 
 it hopeless to attempt to follow and stop her. 
 
 I returned to the sitting-room, pondering on a question 
 which has perplexed wiser heads than mine. Could a man 
 who was hopelessly and entirely wicked have inspired such 
 devoted attachment to him as Dexter had inspired in the 
 faithful woman who had just left me? in the rough gardener 
 who had carried him out so gently on the previous night ? 
 Who can decide ? The greatest scoundrel living always has 
 a friend in a woman or a dog. 
 
 I sat down again -at my desk, and made another attempt 
 to write to Mr. Playmore. 
 
 Recalling, for the purpose of my letter, all that Miserrimus 
 Dexter had said to me, my memory dwelt with special in- 
 terest on the strange outbreak of feeling which had led him 
 to betray the secret of his infatuation for Eustace's first 
 wife. I saw again the ghastly scene in the death-chamber 
 the deformed creature crying over the corpse in the still- 
 ness of the first dark hours of the new day. The horrible 
 picture took a strange hold on my mind. I arose, and walked 
 up and down, and tried to turn my thoughts some other way. 
 It was not to be done: the scene was too familiar to me to 
 be easily dismissed. I had myself visited the room and 
 looked at the bed. I had myself walked in the corridor 
 which Dexter had crossed on his way to take his last leave 
 of her. 
 
 The corridor? I stopped. My thoughts suddenly took a 
 new direction, uninfluenced by any effort of my will. 
 
 AVliat other association besides the association with Dex- 
 ter did I connect with the corridor ? Was it something I 
 had seen during my visit to Gleninch? No. Was it some- 
 thing I had read ? I snatched up the Report of the Trial to 
 see. It opened at a page which contained the nurse's evi- 
 dence. I read the evidence through again, without recover-
 
 268 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 ing the lost remembrance until I came to these lines close at 
 the end : 
 
 " Before bed-time I went up-stairs to prepare the remains 
 of the deceased lady for the coffin. The room in which she 
 lay was locked ; the door leading into Mr. Macallan's room 
 being secured, as well as the door leading into the corridor. 
 The keys had been taken away by Mr. Gale. Two of the 
 men-servants were posted outside the bedroom to keep watch. 
 They were to be relieved at four in the morning that was 
 all they could tell me." 
 
 There was my lost association with the corridor ! There 
 was what I ought to have remembered when Miserrimus 
 Dexter was telling me of his visit to the dead ! 
 
 How had he got into the bedroom the doors being lock- 
 ed, and the keys being taken away by Mr. Gale ? There was 
 but one of the locked doors of which Mr. Gale had not got 
 the key the door of communication between the study and 
 the bedroom. The key was missing from this.. Had it been 
 stolen ? And was Dexter the thief? He might have passed 
 by the men on the watch while they were asleep, or he 
 might have crossed the corridor in an unguarded interval 
 while the men were being relieved. But how could he have 
 got into the bedchamber except by way of the locked study 
 door ? He must have had the key ! And he must have 
 secreted it weeks before Mrs. Eustace Macallan's death ! 
 When the nurse first arrived at Gleninch, on the seventh of 
 the month, her evidence declared the key of the door of com- 
 munication to be then missing. 
 
 To what conclusion did these considerations and discov- 
 eries point ? Had Miserrimus Dexter, in a moment of un- 
 governable agitation, unconsciously placed the clew in my 
 hands? Was the pivot on which turned the whole mystery 
 of the poisoning at Gleninch the missing key ? 
 
 I went back for the third time to my desk ? The one per- 
 son who might be trusted to find the answer to those ques- 
 tions was Mr. Playmore. I wrote him a full and careful ac- 
 count of all that had happened ; I begged him to foi'give and 
 forget my ungracious reception of the advice which he had 
 so kindly offered to me ; and I promised beforehand to do 
 nothing without first consulting his opinion in the new emer- 
 gency which now confronted me. 
 
 The day was fine for the time of year ; and by way of
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 269 
 
 getting a little wholesome exercise after the surprises and 
 occupations of the morning, I took my letter to Mr. Play- 
 more to the post. 
 
 Returning to the villa,! was informed that another visitor 
 was waiting to see me : a civilized visitor this time, who had 
 given her name. My mother-in-law Mrs. Macallan. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 AT THE BEDSIDE. 
 
 BEFORE she had uttered a word, I saw in my mother-in- 
 law's face that she brought bad news. 
 
 " Eustace ?" I said. 
 
 She answered me by a look. 
 
 " Let me hear it at once !" I cried. " I can bear any thing 
 but suspense." 
 
 Mrs. Macallan lifted her hand, and showed me a telegraph- 
 ic dispatch which she had hitherto kept concealed in the 
 folds of her dress. 
 
 " I can trust your courage," she said. " There is no need, 
 my child, to prevaricate with you, Read that." 
 
 I read the telegram. It was sent by the chief surgeon of 
 a field-hospital ; and it was dated from a village in the north 
 of Spain. 
 
 "Mr. Eustace severely wounded in a skirmish by a stray 
 shot. Not in danger, so far. Every care taken of him. 
 Wait for another telegram." 
 
 I turned away my face, and bore as best I might the pans: 
 that wrung me when I read those words. I thought I knew 
 how dearly I loved him : I had n'ever known it till that mo- 
 ment. 
 
 My mother-in-law put her arm round me, and held me to 
 her tenderly. She knew me well enough not to speak to me 
 at that moment. 
 
 I rallied my courage, and pointed to the last sentence in 
 the telegram. 
 
 " Do you mean to wait ?" I asked. 
 
 " Not a day !" she answered. " I am going to the Foreign 
 Office about my passport I have some interest there: they 
 can give me letters; thrv can advise and assist me. I leave 
 to-night by the mail train to Calais."
 
 270 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 " You leave ?" I said. " Do you suppose I will let you go 
 without me ? Get my passport when you get yours. At 
 seven this evening I will be at your house." 
 
 She attempted to remonstrate ; she spoke of the perils of 
 the journey. At the first words I stopped her. " Don't 
 you know yet, mother, how obstinate I am ? They may 
 keep you waiting at the Foreign Office. Why do you waste 
 the precious hours here ?" 
 
 She yielded with a gentleness that was not in her every- 
 day character. " Will my poor Eustace ever know what a 
 wife he has got ?" That was all she said. She kissed me, 
 and went away in her carriage. 
 
 My remembrances of our journey are strangely vague and 
 imperfect. 
 
 As I try to recall them, the memory of those more recent 
 and more interesting events which occurred after my return 
 to England gets between me and my adventures in Spain, 
 and seems to force these last into a shadowy background, un- 
 til they look like adventures that happened many years 
 since. I confusedly recollect delays and alarms that tried 
 our patience and our courage. I remember our finding 
 friends (thanks to our letters of recommendation) in a Secre- 
 tary to the Embassy and in a Queen's Messenger, who as- 
 sisted and protected us at a critical point in the journey. I 
 recall to mind a long succession of men in our employment 
 as travelers, all equally remarkable for their dirty cloaks and 
 their clean linen, for their highly civilized courtesy to wom- 
 en and their utterly barbarous cruelty to horses. Last, and 
 most important of all, I see again, more clearly than I can 
 see any thing else, the one wretched bedroom of a squalid 
 village inn in which we found our poor darling, prostrate be- 
 tween life and death, insensible to every thing that passed 
 in the narrow little world that lay around his bedside. 
 
 There was nothing romantic or interesting in the accident 
 which had put my husband's life in peril. 
 
 He had ventured too near the scene of the conflict (a mis- 
 erable affair) to rescue a poor lad who lay wounded on the 
 field mortally wounded, as the event proved. A rifle-bullet 
 had struck him in the body. His brethren of the field-hos- 
 pital had carried him back to their quarters at the risk of 
 their lives. He was a great favorite with all of them ; pa-
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 271 
 
 tient and gentle and brave ; only wanting a little more 
 judgment to be the most valuable recruit who had joined 
 the brotherhood. 
 
 In telling me this, the surgeon kindly and delicately added 
 a word of warning as well. 
 
 The fever caused by the wound had brought with it deliri- 
 um, as usual. My poor husband's mind, in so far as his wan- 
 dering words might interpret it, was filled by the one image 
 of his wife. The medical attendant had heard enough, in the 
 course of his ministrations at the bedside, to satisfy him that 
 any sudden recognition of me by Eustace (if he recovered) 
 might be attended by the most lamentable results. As 
 things were at that sad time, I might take my turn at nurs- 
 ing him, without the slightest chance of his discovering me, 
 perhaps for weeks and weeks to come. But on the day when 
 he was declared out of danger if that happy day ever ar- 
 rived I must resign my place at his bedside, and must wait 
 to show myself until the surgeon gave me leave. 
 
 My mother-in-law and I relieved each other regularly, day 
 and night, in the sick-room. 
 
 In the hours of his delirium hours that recurred with a 
 pitiless regularity my name was always on my poor dar- 
 ling's fevered lips. The ruling idea in him was the one dread- 
 ful idea which I had vainly combated at our last interview. 
 In the face of'the verdict pronounced at the Trial, it was im- 
 possible even for his wife to be really and truly persuaded 
 that he was an innocent man. All the wild pictures which 
 his distempered imagination drew were equally inspired by 
 .that one obstinate conviction. He fancied himself to be 
 still living with me under those dreaded conditions. Do 
 what he might, I was always recalling to him the terrible 
 ordeal through which he had passed. He acted his part, 
 and he acted mine. He gave me a cup of tea ; and I said 
 to him, " We quarreled yesterday, Eustace. Is it poisoned ?" 
 He kissed me, in token of our reconciliation ; and I laughed, 
 and said, "It's morning now, my dear. Shall I die by nine 
 o'clock to-night ?" I was ill in bed, and he gave me my 
 medicine. I looked at him with a doubting eye. I said to 
 him, "You are in love with another woman. Is there any 
 thing in the medicine that the doctor doesn't know of?" 
 Such was the horrible drama which now perpetually acted 
 itself in his mind. Hundreds and hundreds of times I heard
 
 272 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 him repeat it, almost always in the same words. On other 
 occasions his thoughts wandered away to my desperate proj- 
 ect of proving him to be an innocent man. Sometimes he 
 laughed at it. Sometimes he mourned over it. Sometimes he 
 devised cunning schemes for placing unsuspected obstacles 
 in my way. He was especially hard on me when he was in- 
 venting his preventive stratagems he cheerfully instructed 
 the visionary people who assisted him not to hesitate at of- 
 fending or distressing me. " Never mind if you make her 
 angry ; never mind if you make her cry. It's all for her good ; 
 it's all to save the poor fool from dangers she doesn't dream 
 of. You mustn't pity her when she says she does it for my 
 sake. See ! she is going to be insulted ; she is going to be de- 
 ceived; she is going to disgrace herself without knowing it. 
 Stop her ! stop her !" It was weak of me, I know ; I ought to 
 have kept the plain fact that he was out of his senses always 
 present to my mind :. still it is true that my hours passed at 
 my husband's pillow were many of them hours of mortifica- 
 tion and misery of which he, poor dear, was the innocent and 
 only cause. 
 
 The weeks passed ; and he still hovered between life and 
 deatk 
 
 I kept no record of the time, and I can not now recall the ex- 
 ^ct date on which the first favorable change took place. I only 
 remember that it was toward sunrise on a fine winter morn- 
 ing when we were relieved at last of our heavy burden of 
 suspense. The surgeon happened to be by the bedside when 
 his patient awoke.. The first thing he did, after looking at 
 Eustace, was to caution me by a sign to be silent and to 
 keep out of sight. My mother-in-law and I both knew what 
 this meant. With full hearts we thanked God together for 
 giving us back the husband and the son. 
 
 The same evening, being alone, we ventured to speak of 
 the future for the first time since we had left home. 
 
 " The surgeon tells me," said Mrs. Macallan, " that Eus- 
 tace is too weak to be capable of bearing any thing in the 
 nature of a surprise for some days to come. We have time 
 to consider whether he is or is not to be told that he owes 
 his life as much to your care as to mine. Can you find it in 
 your heart to leave him, Valeria, now that God's mercy has 
 restored him to you and to me ?" 
 
 " If I only consulted my own heart," I answered, " I should 
 never leave him again."
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 273 
 
 / Mrs. Macallan looked at ine in grave surprise. 
 
 " What else have you to consult ?" she asked. 
 
 " If we both live," I replied, " I have to think of the hap- 
 piness of his life and the happiness of mine in the years that 
 are to come. I can bear a great deal, mother, but I can not 
 endure the misery of his leaving me for the second time." 
 
 " You wrong him,Valeria I firmly believe you wrong him 
 in thinking it possible that he can leave you again." 
 
 "Dear Mrs. Macallan, have you forgotten already what we 
 have both heard him say of me while we have been sitting 
 by his bedside ?" 
 
 " We have heard the ravings of a man in delirium. It is 
 surely hard to hold Eustace responsible for what he said 
 when he was out of his senses." 
 
 " It is harder still," I said, " to resist his mother when she 
 is pleading for him. Dearest and best of friends ! I don't 
 hold Eustace responsible for what he said in the fever but 
 I do take warning by it. The wildest words that fell from 
 him were, one and all, the faithful echo of what he said to me 
 in the best days of his health and his strength. What hope 
 have I that he will recover with an altered mind toward 
 me ? Absence has not changed it ; suffering has not changed 
 it. In the delirium of fever, and in the full possession of his 
 reason, he has the same dreadful doubt of me. I see but ohw 
 way of winning him back : I must destroy at its root his 
 motive for leaving me. It is hopeless to persuade him that 
 I believe in his innocence : I must show him that belief is no 
 longer necessary ; I must prove to him that his position to- 
 ward me has become the position of an innocent man !" 
 
 " Valeria ! Valeria ! you are wasting time and words. You 
 have tried the experiment ; and you know as well as I do 
 that the thing is not to be done." 
 
 I had no answer to that. I could say no more than I had 
 said already. 
 
 " Suppose you go back to Dexter, out of sheer compassion 
 for a mad and miserable wretch who has already insulted 
 you," proceeded my mother-in-law. "You can only go back 
 accompanied by me, or by some other trustworthy person. 
 You can only stay long enough to humor the creature's way- 
 ward fancy, and to keep his crazy brain quiet for a time. 
 That done, all is done you leave him. Even supposing 
 Dexter to be still capable of helping you, how can you make
 
 2*74 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 use of him but by admitting him to terms of confidence and 
 familiarity by treating him, in short, on the footing of an 
 intimate friend ? Answer me honestly: can you bring your- 
 self to do that, after what happened at Mr. Benjamin's house ?" 
 
 I had told her of my last interview with Miserrimus Dex- 
 ter, in the natural confidence that she inspired in me as rela- 
 tive and fellow-traveler ; and this was the use to which she 
 turned her information ! I suppose I had no right to blame 
 her; I suppose the motive sanctioned every thing. At any 
 rate, I had no choice but to give offense or to give an an- 
 swer. I gave it. I acknowledged that I could never again 
 permit Miserrimus Dexter to treat me on terms of familiar- 
 ity as a trusted and intimate friend. 
 
 " Mrs. Macallan pitilessly pressed the advantage that she 
 had won. 
 
 " Very well," she said, " that resource being no longer open 
 to you, what hope is left ? Which way are you to turn next ?" 
 
 There was no meeting those questions, in my present situ- 
 ation, by any adequate reply. I felt strangely unlike myself 
 I submitted in silence. Mrs. Macallan struck the last blow 
 that completed her victory. 
 
 " My poor Eustace is weak and wayward," she said ; " but 
 he is not an ungrateful man. My child, you have returned 
 him good for evil you have proved how iaithfully and how 
 devotedly you love him, by suffering all hardships and risk- 
 ing all dangers for his sake. Trust me, and trust him ! He 
 can not resist you. Let him see the dear face that he has 
 been dreaming of looking at him again with all the old love 
 in it, and he is yours once more, my daughter yours for 
 life." She rose and touched my forehead with her lips ; her 
 voice sank to tones of tenderness which I had never heard 
 from her yet. " Say yes, Valeria," she whispered ; " and be 
 dearer to me and dearer to him than ever !" 
 
 My heart sided with her. My energies were worn out. 
 No letter had arrived from Mr. Playmore to guide and to 
 encourage me. I had resisted so long and so vainly ; I had 
 tried and suffered so much ; I had met with such cruel dis- 
 asters and such reiterated disappointments and he was in 
 the room beneath me, feebly finding his way back to con- 
 sciousness and to life how could I resist ? It was all over. 
 In saying Yes (if Eustace confirmed his mother's confidence 
 in him), I was saying adieu to the one cherished ambition,
 
 THE LAW AXD THE LADY. 2/5 
 
 the one dear and noble hope of ray life. I knew it and I 
 said Yes. 
 
 And so good-by to the grand struggle ! And so wel- 
 come to the new resignation which owned that I had failed. 
 
 My mother-in-law and I slept together under the only 
 shelter that the inn could offer to us a sort of loft at the 
 top of the house. The night that followed our conversation 
 was bitterly cold. We felt the chilly temperature, in spite 
 of the protection of our dressing-gowns and our traveling- 
 wrappers. My mother-in-law slept, but no rest came to me. 
 I was too anxious and too wretched, thinking over my 
 changed position, and doubting how my husband would re- 
 ceive me, to be able to sleep. 
 
 Some hours, as I suppose, must have passed, and I was 
 still absorbed in my own melancholy thoughts, when I sud- 
 denly became conscious of a new and strange sensation which 
 astonished and alarmed me. I started up in the bed, breath- 
 less and bewildered. The movement awakened Mrs. Macal- 
 lan. "Are you ill ?" she asked. " What is the matter with 
 you ?" I tried to tell her, as well as I could. She seemed to 
 understand me before I had done ; she took me tenderly in 
 her arms, and pressed me to her bosom. "My poor innocent 
 child," she said, " is it possible you don't know ? Must I 
 really tell you ?" She whispered her next words. Shall I 
 ever forget the tumult of feelings which the whisper aroused 
 in me the strange medley of joy and fear, and wonder and 
 relief, and pride and humility, which filled my whole being, 
 and made a new woman of me from that moment? Now, 
 for the first time, I knew it ! If God spared me for a few 
 months more, the most enduring and the most sacred of all 
 human joys might be mine the joy of being a mother. 
 
 I don't know how the rest of the night passed. I only 
 find my memory again when the morning came, and when I 
 went out by myself to breathe the crisp wintry air on the 
 open moor behind the inn. 
 
 I have said that I felt like a new woman. The morning 
 found me with a new resolution and a new courage. When 
 I thought of the future, I had not only my husband to con- 
 sider now. His good name was no longer his own and mine 
 it might soon become the most precious inheritance that 
 he could leave to his child. What had I dune while I was in
 
 276 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 ignorance of this? I had resigned the hope of cleansing his 
 name from the stain that rested on it a stain still, no mat- 
 ter how little it might look in the eye of the Law. Our 
 child might live to hear malicious tongues say, " Your father 
 was tried for the vilest of all murders, and was never abso- 
 lutely acquitted of the charge." Could I face the glorious 
 perils of childbirth with that possibility present to my mind ? 
 No ! not until I had made one more effort to lay the con- 
 science of Miserrimus Dexter bare to my view ! not until I 
 had once again renewed the struggle, and brought the truth 
 that vindicated the husband and the father to the light of 
 day! 
 
 I went back to the house, with my new courage to sustain 
 me. I opened my heart to my friend and mother, and told 
 her frankly of the change that had come over me since we 
 had last spoken of Eustace. 
 
 She was more than disappointed she was almost offended 
 with me. The one thing needful had happened, she said. 
 The happiness that might soon come to us would form a new 
 tie between my husband and me. Every other considera- 
 tion but this, she treated as purely fanciful. If I left Eustace 
 now, I did a heartless thing and a foolish thing. I should re- 
 gret, to the end of my days, having thrown away the one 
 golden opportunity of my married life. 
 
 It cost me a hard struggle, it oppressed me with many a 
 painful doubt ; but I held firm this time. The honor of the 
 father, the inheritance of the child I kept these thoughts as 
 constantly as possible before my mind. Sometimes they 
 failed me, and left me nothing better than a poor fool who 
 had some fitful bursts of crying, and was always ashamed of 
 herself afterward. But my native obstinacy (as Mrs. Macal- 
 lan said) carried me through. Now and then I had a peep 
 at Eustace, while he was asleep ; and that helped me too. 
 Though they made my heart ache and shook me sadly at the 
 time, those furtive visits to my husband fortified me after- 
 ward. I can not explain how this happened (it seems so 
 contradictory) ; I can only repeat it as one of my experi- 
 ences at that troubled time. 
 
 I made one concession to Mrs. Macallan I consented to 
 wait for two days before I took any steps for returning to 
 England, on the chance -that my mind might change in the 
 interval.
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 2/7 
 
 It was well for me that I yielded so far. On the second 
 day the director of the field-hospital sent to the post-office 
 at our nearest town for letters addressed to him or to his 
 care. The messenger brought back a letter for me. I 
 thought I recognized the handwriting, and I was right. 
 Mr. Playmore's answer had reached me at last ! 
 
 If I had been in any danger of changing my mind, the 
 good lawyer would have saved me in the nick of time. The 
 extract that follows contains the pith of his letter; and 
 shows how he encouraged me when I stood in sore need of 
 a few cheering and friendly words. 
 
 " Let me now tell you," he wrote, " what I have done 
 toward verifying the conclusion to which your letter points. 
 
 "I have traced one of the servants who was appointed to 
 keep watch in the corridor on the night when the first Mrs. 
 Eustace died at Gleninch. The man perfectly remembers 
 that Miserrimus Dexter suddenly appeared before him and 
 his fellow-servant long after the house was quiet for the 
 night. Dexter said to them, 'I suppose there is no harm in 
 my going into the study to read ? I can't sleep after what 
 has happened; I must relieve my mind somehow.' The men 
 had no orders to keep any one out of the study. They knew 
 that the door of communication with the bedchamber was 
 locked, and that the keys of the two other doors of commu- 
 nication were in the possession of Mr. Gale. They according- 
 ly permitted Dexter to go into the study. He closed the 
 door (the door that opened on the corridor), and remained 
 absent for some time in the study as the men supposed ; in 
 the bedchamber as ice know from what he let out at his in- 
 terview with you. Now he could enter that room, as you 
 rightly imagine, in but one way by being in possession of 
 the missing key. How long he remained there I can n6t 
 discover. The point is of little consequence. The servant 
 remembers that he came out of the study again 'as pale as 
 death,' and that he passed on without a word on his way 
 back to his own room. 
 
 "These are facts. The conclusion to which they lead is 
 serious in the last degree. It justifies every thing that I con- 
 fided to you in my office at Edinburgh. You remember 
 what passed between us. I say no more. 
 
 " As to yourself next. You have innocently aroused in 
 Miserrimus Dexter a feeling toward you which I need not 
 N
 
 278 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 attempt to characterize. There is a certain something I 
 saw it myself in your figure, and in some of your move- 
 ments, which does recall the late Mrs. Eustace to those who 
 knew her well, and which has evidently had its effect on 
 Dexter's morbid mind. Without dwelling further on this 
 subject, let me only remind you that he has shown himself 
 (as a consequence of your influence over him) to be incapa- 
 ble, in his moments of agitation, of thinking before he speaks 
 while he is in your presence. It is not merely possible, it is 
 highly probable, that he may betray himself far more seri- 
 ously than he has betrayed himself yet if you give him the 
 opportunity. I owe it to you (knowing what your interests 
 are) to express myself plainly on this point. I have no sort 
 of doubt that you have advanced one step nearer to the end 
 which you have in view in the brief interval since you left 
 Edinburgh. I see in your letter (and in my discoveries) ir- 
 resistible evidence that Dexter must have been in secret 
 communication with the deceased lady (innocent communi- 
 cation, I am certain, so far as she was concerned), not only at 
 the time of her death, but perhaps for weeks before it. I 
 can not disguise from myself, or from you, my own strong 
 persuasion that if you succeed in discovering the nature of 
 this communication, in all human likelihood you prove your 
 husband's innocence by the discovery of the truth. As an 
 honest man, I am bound not to conceal this. And, as an 
 honest man also, I am equally bound to add that, not even 
 with your reward in view, can I find it in my conscience to 
 advise you to risk what you must risk if you see Miserrimus 
 Dexter again. In this difficult and delicate matter I can 
 not and will not take the responsibility : the final decision 
 must rest with yourself. One favor only I entreat you to 
 grant let me hear what you resolve to do as soon as you 
 know it youi-self." 
 
 The difficulties which my worthy correspondent felt were 
 no difficulties to me. I did not possess Mr. Play more's judi- 
 cial mind. My resolution was settled before I had read his 
 letter through. 
 
 The mail to France crossed the frontier the next day. 
 There was a place for me, under the protection of the con* 
 ductor, if I chose to take it. Without consulting a living 
 creature rash as usual, headlong as usual I took it.
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. ' 279 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIH. 
 
 ON THE JOU.KNEY BACK. 
 
 IF I had been traveling homeward in my own carriage, the 
 remaining chapters of this narrative would never have been 
 written. Before we had been an hour on the road I should 
 have called to the driver, and should have told him to turn 
 back. 
 
 Who can be always resolute? 
 
 In asking that question, I speak of the women, not of the 
 men. I had been resolute in turning a deaf ear to Mr.Play- 
 more's doubts and cautions ; resolute in holding out against 
 my mother-in-law ; resolute in taking my place by the French 
 mail. Until ten minutes after we had driven away from the 
 inn my courage held out and then it failed me ; then I said 
 to myself, "You wretch, you have deserted your husband!" 
 For hours afterward, if I could have stopped the mail, I 
 would have done it. I hated the conductor, the kindest of 
 men. I hated the Spanish ponies that drew us, the cheeriest 
 animals that ever jingled a string of bells. I hated the 
 bright day that would make things pleasant, and the bracing 
 air that forced rne to feel the luxury of breathing whether I 
 liked it or not. Never was a journey more miserable than 
 my safe and easy journey to the frontier. But one little 
 comfort helped me to bear my heart -ache resignedly a 
 stolen morsel of Eustace's hair. We had started at an hour 
 of the morning when lie was still sound asleep. I could 
 creep into his room, and kiss him, and cry over him softly, 
 and cut off a stray lock of his hair, without danger of 
 discovery. How I summoned resolution enough to leave 
 him is, to this hour, not clear to my mind. I think my 
 mother-in-law must have helped me, without meaning to do 
 it. She came into the room with an erect head and a cold 
 eye ; she said, with an unmerciful emphasis on the word, 
 "If you mean to go, Valeria, the carriage is here." Any 
 woman with a spark of spirit in her would have "meant" it 
 under those circumstances. I meant it and did it. 
 
 And then I was sorry for it. Poor humanity I
 
 280 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 Time has got all the credit of being the great consoler of 
 afflicted mortals. In my opinion, Time has been overrated 
 in this matter. Distance does the same beneficent work far 
 more speedily, and (when assisted by Change) far more ef- 
 fectually as well. On the railroad to Paris, I became capa- 
 ble of taking a sensible view of my position. I could now 
 remind myself that my husbaifd's reception of me after the 
 first surprise and the first happiness had passed away might 
 not have justified his mother's confidence in him. Admitting 
 that I ran a risk in going back to Miserrimus Dexter, should 
 I not have been equally rash, in another way, if I had re- 
 turned, uninvited, to a husband who had declared that our 
 conjugal happiness was impossible, and that our married life 
 was at an end ? Besides, who could say that the events of 
 the future might not yet justify me not only to myself, but 
 to him? I might yet hear him say, "She was inquisitive 
 when she had no business to inquire ; she was obstinate when 
 she ought to have listened to reason ; she left my bedside 
 when other women would have remained; but in the end 
 she atoned for it all she turned out to be right !" 
 
 I rested a day at Paris, and wrote three letters. 
 
 One to Benjamin, telling him to expect me the next even- 
 ing.^ One to Mr. Playmore, warning him, in good time, that 
 I meant to make a last effort to penetrate the mystery at 
 Gleninch. One to Eustace (of a few lines only), owning that 
 I had helped to nurse him through the dangerous part of his 
 illness ; confessing the one reason which had prevailed with 
 me to leave him ; and entreating him to suspend his opinion 
 of me until time had proved that I loved him more dearly 
 than ever. This last letter I inclosed to my mother-in-law, 
 leaving it to her discretion to choose the right time for giv- 
 ing it to her son. I positively forbade Mrs. Macallan, how- 
 ever, to tell Eustace of the new tie between us. Although 
 he had separated himself from me, I was determined that he 
 should not hear it from other lips than mine. Never mind 
 why. There are certain little matters which I must keep to 
 myself; and this is one of them. 
 
 My letters being written, my duty was done. I was free 
 to play my last card in the game the darkly doubtful game 
 which was neither quite for me nor quite against me as the 
 chances now stood.
 
 I 
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 281 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 ON THE WAY TO DEXTEK. 
 
 " I DECLARE to Heaven, Valeria, I believe that monster's 
 madness is infectious and you have caught it !" 
 
 This was Benjamin's opinion of me (on my safe arrival at 
 the villa) after I had announced my intention of returning 
 Miserrimus Dexter's visit, in his company. 
 
 Being determined to carry my point, I could afford to try 
 the influence of mild persuasion. I begged my good friend 
 to have a little patience with me. "And do remember what 
 I have already told you," I added. "It is of serious impor- 
 tance to me to see Dexter again." 
 
 I only heaped fuel on the fire. " See him again ?" Benja- 
 min repeated, indignantly. "See him, after he grossly in- 
 sulted you, under my roof, in this very room ? I can't be 
 awake ; I must be asleep and dreaming !" 
 
 It was wrong of me, I know. But Benjamin's virtuous in- 
 dignation was so very virtuous that it let the spirit of mis- 
 chief loose in me. I really could not resist the temptation 
 to outrage his sense of propriety by taking an audaciously 
 liberal view of the whole matter. 
 
 "Gently, my good friend, gently," I said, "We must 
 make allowances for a man who suffers under Dexter's in- 
 firmities, and lives Dexter's life. And really we must not 
 let our modesty lead us beyond reasonable limits. I begin 
 to think that I took rather a prudish view of the thing my- 
 self at the time. A woman who respects herself, and whose 
 whole heart is with her husband, is not so very seriously in- 
 jured when a wretched crippled creature is rude enough to 
 put his arm around her waist. Virtuous indignation (if I 
 may venture to say so) is sometimes very cheap indignation. 
 Besides, I have forgiven him and you must forgive him too. 
 There is no fear of his forgetting himself again, while you 
 are with me. His house is quite a curiosity it is sure to in- 
 1 <]<<( you; the pictures alone are worth the 1 journey. I will 
 write to him to-d;iy, and \ve will go and see him together to- 
 morrow. We owe it to ourselves (if we don't owe it to Mr.
 
 282 THE LAW AND TUB LADY. 
 
 Dexter) to pay this visit. If you will look about you, Ben- 
 jamin, you will see that benevolence toward every body is 
 the great virtue of the time we live in. Poor Mr. Dexter 
 must have the benefit of the prevailing fashion. Come, come, 
 march with the age ! Open your mind to the new ideas !" 
 
 Instead of accepting this polite invitation, worthy old Ben- 
 jamin flew at the age we lived in like a bull at a red cloth. 
 
 " Oh, the new ideas ! the new ideas ! By all manner of 
 means, Valeria, let us have the new ideas ! The old moral- 
 ity's all wrong, the old ways are all worn out. Let's march 
 with the age we live in. Nothing comes amiss to the age 
 we live in. The wife in England and the husband in Spain, 
 married or not married, living together or not living to- 
 gether it's all one to the new ideas. I'll go with you, Va- 
 leria; I'll be worthy of the generation I live in. When we 
 have done with Dexter, don't let's do things by halves. Let's 
 go and get crammed with ready-made science at a lecture 
 let's hear the last new professor, the man who has been be- 
 hind the scenes at Creation, and knows to a T how the world 
 was made, and how long it took to make it. There's the other 
 fellow, too : mind we don't forget the modern Solomon, who 
 has left his proverbs behind him the brand-new philosopher 
 who considers the consolations of religion in the light of 
 harmless playthings, and who is kind enough to say that he 
 might have been all the happier if he could only have been 
 childish enough to play with them himself. Oh, the new 
 ideas ! the new ideas ! what consoling, elevating, beautiful 
 discoveries have been made by the new ideas! We were all 
 monkeys before we were men, and molecules before we were 
 monkeys ! And what does it matter? And what does any 
 thing matter to any body ? I'm with you, Valeria, I'm ready. 
 The sooner the better. Come to Dexter ! Come to Dexter J" 
 
 " I am so glad you agree with me," I said. " But let us 
 do nothing in a hurry. Three o'clock to-morrow will be time 
 enough for Mr. Dexter. I will write at once and tell him to 
 expect us. Where are you going ?" 
 
 ^ " I am going to clear my mind of cant," said Benjamin, 
 sternly. "I am going into the library." 
 
 " What are you going to read ?" 
 
 "I am going to read Puss in Boots, and Jack and the 
 Bean-stalk, and any thing else I can find that doesn't march 
 with the age we live in."
 
 TUE LAW AND TUB LADY. 283 
 
 With that parting shot at the new ideas, my old friend 
 left me for a time. 
 
 Having dispatched my note, I found myself beginning to 
 revert, with a certain feeling of anxiety, to the subject of 
 Miserrimus Dexter's health. How had he passed through 
 the interval of my absence from England ? Could any body, 
 within rny reach, tell me news of him ? To inquire of Ben- 
 jamin would only be to provoke a new outbreak. "While I 
 was still considering, the housekeeper entered the room on 
 some domestic errand. I asked, at a venture, if she had 
 heard any thing more while I had been away, of the extraor- 
 dinary person who had so seriously alarmed her on a former 
 occasion. 
 
 The housekeeper shook her head, and looked as if she 
 thought it in bad taste to mention the subject at all. 
 
 "About a week after you had gone away, ma'am," she 
 said, with extreme severity of manner, and with excessive 
 carefulness in her choice of words, " the Person you mention 
 had the impudence to send a letter to you. The messenger 
 was informed, by my master's orders, that you had gone 
 abroad, and he and his letter were both sent about their 
 business together. Not long afterward, ma'am, I happened, 
 while drinking tea with Mrs. Macallan's housekeeper, to hear 
 of the Person again. He himself called in his chaise, at Mrs. 
 Macallan's, to inquire about you there. How he can contrive 
 to sit, without legs to balance him, is beyond my understand- 
 ing but that is neither here nor there. Legs or no legs, the 
 housekeeper saw him, and she says, as I say, she will never 
 forget him to her dying day. She told him (as soon as she 
 recovered herself) of Mr. Eustace's illness, and of you and 
 Mrs. Mac-.illan being in foreign parts nursing him. He went 
 away, so the housekeeper told me, with tears in his eyes, and 
 oaths and curses on his lips a sight shocking to see. That's 
 all I know about the Person, ma'am, and I hope to be ex- 
 cused if I venture to say that the subject is (for good rea- 
 sons) extremely disagreeable to me." 
 
 She made a formal courtesy, and quitted the room. 
 
 Left by myself, I felt more anxious and more uncertain 
 than ever when I thought of the experiment that was to be 
 tried on the next day. Making due allowance for exagger- 
 ation, the description of Miserrimus Dexter on his departure 
 from Mrs. Macallan's house suggested that he had not en-
 
 284 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 dured my long absence very patiently, and that he was still 
 as far as ever from giving his shattered nervous system its 
 fair chance of repose. 
 
 The next morning brought me Mr. Playmore's reply to 
 the letter which I had addressed to him from Paris. 
 
 He wrote very briefly, neither approving nor blaming my 
 decision, but strongly reiterating his opinion that I should 
 do well to choose a competent witness as my companion at 
 my coming interview with Dexter. The most interesting 
 part of the letter was at the end. " You must be prepared," 
 Mr. Playmore wrote, " to see a change for the worse in Dex- 
 ter. A friend of mine was with him on a matter of business 
 a few days since, and was struck by the alteration in him. 
 Your presence is sure to have its effect, one way or another. 
 I can give you no instructions for managing him you must 
 be guided by the circumstances. Your own tact will tell 
 you whether it is wise or not to encourage him to speak of 
 the late Mrs. Eustace. The chances of his betraying himself 
 all revolve (as I think) round that one topic : keep him to it 
 if you can." To this was added, in a postscript : " Ask Mr. 
 Benjamin if he were near enough to the library door to hear 
 Dexter tell you of his entering the bedchamber on the night 
 of Mrs. Eustace Macallan's death." 
 
 I put the question to Benjamin when we met at the lunch- 
 eon-table before setting forth for the distant suburb in which 
 Miserrimus Dexter lived. My old friend disapproved of the 
 contemplated expedition as strongly as ever. He was unu- 
 sually grave and unusually sparing of his words when he 
 answered me. 
 
 " I am no listener," he said. " But some people have 
 voices which insist on being heard. Mr. Dexter is one of 
 them." 
 
 " Does that mean that you heard him ?" I asked. 
 
 "The door couldn't muffle him, and the wall couldn't muf- 
 fle him," Benjamin rejoined. " I heard him and I thought 
 it infamous. There !" 
 
 " I may want you to do more than hear him this time," I 
 ventured to say. "1 may want you to make notes of our 
 conversations while Mr. Dexter is speaking to me. You used 
 to write down what my father said, when he was dictating 
 his letters to you. Have you got one of your little note- 
 books to spare ?"
 
 TUB LAW AND THE LADY. 285 
 
 Benjamin looked up from his plate with an aspect of stern 
 surprise. 
 
 " It's one thing," he said, " to write under the dictation 
 of a great merchant, conducting a vast correspondence by 
 which thousands of pounds change hands in due course of 
 post. And it's another thing to take down the gibberish 
 of a maundering mad monster who ought to be kept in a 
 cage. Your good father, Valeria, would never have asked 
 me to do that." 
 
 " Forgive me, Benjamin ; I must really ask you to do it. 
 You may be of the greatest possible use to me. Come, 
 give way this once, dear, for my sake." 
 
 Benjamin looked down again at his plate, with a rueful 
 resignation which told me that I had carried my point. 
 
 "I have been tied to her apron-string all my life," I heard 
 him grumble to himself; "and it's too late in the day to 
 get loose from her now." He looked up again" at me. "I 
 thought I had retired from business," he said ; " but it 
 eems I must turn clerk again. "Well? What is the new 
 stroke of work that's expected from me this time ?" 
 
 The cab was announced to be waiting for us at the gate 
 as he asked the question. I rose and took his arm, and gave 
 him a grateful kiss on his rosy old cheek. 
 
 " Only two things," I said. " Sit down behind Mr. Dex- 
 ter's chair, so that he can't see you. But take care to place 
 yourself, at the same time, so that you can see me." 
 
 " The less I see of Mr. Dexter the better I shall be pleased," 
 growled Benjamin. " What am I to do after I have taken- 
 my place behind him?" 
 
 " You are to wait until I make you a sign ; and when you 
 see it you are to begin writing down in your note-book what 
 Mr. Dexter is saying and you are to go on until I make 
 another sign, which means, Leave off!" 
 
 " Well ?" said Benjamin, " what's the sign for Begin? and 
 what's the sign for Leave off?" 
 
 I was not quite prepared with an answer to this. I asked 
 him to help me with a hint. No ! Benjamin would take 
 no active part in the matter. He was resigned to be em- 
 ployed in the capacity of passive instrument and there all 
 concession ended, so far as he was concerned. 
 
 Left to my own resources, I found it no easy matter to in- 
 vent a telegraphic system which should sufficiently inform 
 X _>
 
 286 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 Benjamin, without awakening Dexter's quick suspicion. I 
 looked into the glass to see if I could find the necessary sug- 
 gestion in any thing that I wore. My earrings supplied me 
 with the idea of which I was in search. 
 
 " I shall take care to sit in an arm-chair," I said. " When 
 you see me rest my elbow on the chair, and lift my hand to 
 my earring, as if I were playing with it write down what 
 he says; and go on until well, suppose we say, until you 
 hear me move my chair. At that sound, stop. You under- 
 stand me ?" 
 
 " I understand you." 
 
 We started for Dexter's house. 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 
 NEMESIS AT LAST. 
 
 THE gardener opened the gate to us on this occasion. He 
 had evidently received his orders in anticipation of my ar- 
 rival. 
 
 " Mrs. Valeria ?" he asked. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "And friend?" 
 
 "And friend." 
 
 " Please to step up-stairs. You know the house." 
 
 Crossing the hall, I stopped for a moment, and looked at 
 a favorite walking-cane which Benjamin still kept in his 
 hand. 
 
 " Your cane will only be in your way," I said. " Had you 
 not better leave it here?" 
 
 " My cane may be useful up-stairs," retorted Benjamin, 
 gruffly. "jT haven't forgotten what happened in the library." 
 
 It was no time to contend with him. I led the way up 
 the stairs. 
 
 Arriving at the upper flight of steps, I was startled by 
 hearing a sudden cry from the room above. It was like the 
 cry of a person in pain ; and it was twice repeated before 
 we entered the circular antechamber. I was the first to ap- 
 proach the inner room, and to see the many-sided Miserri- 
 mus Dexter in another new aspect of his character. 
 
 The unfortunate Ariel was standing before a table, with a
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 287 
 
 dish of little cakes placed in front of her. Round each of her 
 wrists was tied a string, the free ends of which (at a distance 
 of a few yards) were held in Miserrimus Dexter's hands. 
 "Try again, my beauty !" I heard him say, as I stopped on 
 the threshold of the door. " Take a cake." At the word 
 of command, Ariel submissively stretched out one arm to- 
 ward the dish. Just as she touched a cake with the tips of 
 her fingers her hand was jerked away by a pull at the string, 
 so savagely cruel in the nimble and devilish violence of it 
 that I felt inclined to snatch Benjamin's cane out of his hand 
 and break it over Miserrimus Dexter's back. Ariel suffered 
 the pain this time in Spartan silence. The position in which 
 she stood enabled her to be the first to see me at the door. 
 She had discovered me. Her teeth were set; her face was 
 Hushed under the struggle to restrain herself. Not even a 
 sigh escaped her in my presence. 
 
 "Drop the string!" I called out, indignantly. "Release 
 her, Mr. Dexter, or I shall leave the house." 
 
 At the sound of my voice he burst out with a shrill cry of 
 welcome. His eyes fastened on me with a fierce, devouring 
 delight. 
 
 " Come in ! come in !" he cried. " See what I ana reduced 
 to in the maddening suspense of waiting for you. See how 
 I kill the time when the time parts us. Come in ! come in ! 
 I am in one of my malicious humors this morning, caused 
 entirely, Mrs. Valeria, by my anxiety to see you. When I 
 am in my malicious humors I must tease something. I am 
 teasing Ariel. Look at her! She has had nothing to eat all 
 day, and she hasn't been quick enough to snatch a morsel of 
 cake yet. You needn't pity her. Ariel has no nerves I 
 don't hurt her." 
 
 "Ariel has no nerves," echoed the poor creature, frowning 
 at me for interfering between her master and herself. " He 
 doesn't hurt me." 
 
 I heard Benjamin beginning to swing his cane behind me. 
 
 "Drop the string!" I reiterated, more vehemently than 
 ever. "Drop it, or I shall instantly leave you." 
 
 Miserrimus Dexter's delicate nerves shuddered at my vio- 
 lence. " What a glorious voice !" he exclaimed and drop- 
 ped the string. "Take the cakes," he added, addressing 
 Ariel in his most imperial manner. 
 
 She passed me, with the strings hanging from her swollen
 
 288 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 wrists, and the dish of cakes in her hand. She nodded her 
 head at me defiantly. 
 
 "Ariel has got no nerves," she repeated, proudly. "He 
 doesn't hurt me." 
 
 "You see," said Miserrimus Dexter, "there is no harm 
 done and I dropped the strings when you told me. Don't 
 begin by being hard on me, Mrs. Valeria, after your long ab- 
 sence." He paused. Benjamin, standing silent in the door- 
 way, attracted his attention for the first time. "Who is 
 this?" he asked, and wheeled his chair suspiciously nearer 
 to the door. " I know !" he cried, before I could answer. 
 " This is the benevolent gentleman who looked like the ref- 
 uge of the afflicted when I saw him last. You have altered 
 for the worse since then, sir. You have stepped into quite 
 a new character you personify Retributive Justice now. 
 Your new protector, Mrs. Valeria I understand !" He bow- 
 ed low to Benjamin, with ferocious irony. " Your humble 
 servant, Mr. Retributive Justice ! I have deserved you 
 and I submit to you. Walk in, sir ! I will take care that 
 your new office shall be a sinecure. This lady is the Light 
 of my Life. Catch me failing in respect to her if you can !" 
 He backed his chair before Benjamin (who listened to him 
 in contemptuous silence) until he reached the part of the 
 room in which I was standing. "Your hand, Light of my 
 Life !" he murmured in his gentlest tones. " Your hand 
 only to show that you have forgiven me !" I gave him my 
 hand. " One ?" he whispered, entreatingly. "Only one?" 
 He kissed my hand once, respectfully and dropped it with 
 a heavy sigh. "Ah, poor Dt-xter !" he said, pitying himself 
 with the whole sincerity of his egotism. " A warm heart 
 wasted in solitude, mocked by deformity. Sa'd ! sad ! Ah, 
 poor Dexter !" He looked round again at Benjamin, with 
 another flash of his ferocious irony. " A beauteous day, sir," 
 he said, with mock -conventional courtesy. "Seasonable 
 weather indeed after the late long-continued rains. Can I 
 offer you any refreshment ? Won't you sit down ? Retrib- 
 utive Justice, when it is no taller than you are, looks best in 
 a chair." 
 
 " And a monkey looks best in a cage," rejoined Benjamin, 
 enraged at the satirical reference to his shortness of stature. 
 " I was waiting, sir, to see you get into your swing." 
 
 The retort produced no effect on Miserrimus Dexter: it
 
 TUB LAW AND THE LADY. 289 
 
 appeared to have passed by him unheard. He had changed 
 again ; he was thoughtful, he was subdued ; his eyes were 
 fixed on me with a sad and rapt attention. I took the near- 
 est arm-chair, first casting a glance at Benjamin, which he 
 immediately understood. He placed himself behind Dexter, 
 at an angle which commanded a view of my chair. Ariel, 
 silently devouring her cakes, crouched on a stool at " the 
 Master's " feet, and looked up at him like a faithful dog. 
 There was an interval of quiet and repose. I was able to 
 observe Miserrimus Dexter uninterruptedly for the first time 
 since I had entered the room. 
 
 I was not surprised I was nothing less than alarmed by 
 the change for the worse in him since we had last met. Mr. 
 Playmore's letter had not prepared me for the serious dete- 
 rioration in him which I could now discern. 
 
 His features were pinched and worn ; the whole face seem- 
 ed to have wasted strangely in substance and size since I had 
 last seen it. The softness in his eyes was gone. Blood-red 
 veins were intertwined all over them now: they were set in 
 a piteous and vacant stare. His once firm hands looked with- 
 ered ; they trembled as they lay on the coverlet. The pale- 
 ness of his face (exaggerated, perhaps, by the black velvet 
 jacket that he wore) had a sodden and sickly look the fine 
 outline was gone. The multitudinous little wrinkles at the 
 corners of his eyes had deepened. His head sank into his 
 shoulders when he leaned forward in his chair. Years ap- 
 peared to have passed over him, instead of months, while I 
 had been absent from England. Remembering the medical 
 report which Mr. Playmore had given me to read recalling 
 the doctor's positively declared opinion that the preservation 
 of Dexter's sanity depended on the healthy condition of his 
 nerves I could not but feel that I had done wisely (if I 
 might still hope for success) in hastening my return from 
 Spain. Knowing what I knew, fearing what I feared, I be- 
 lieved that his time was near. I felt, when our eyes met by 
 accident, that I was looking at a doomed man. 
 
 I pitied him. 
 
 Yes, yes ! I know that compassion for him was utterly in- 
 consistent with the motive which had taken me to his house 
 utterly inconsistent with the doubt, still present to my 
 mind, whether Mr. Playmore had really wronged him in be- 
 lieving that his was the guilt which had compassed the first
 
 290 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 Mrs. Eustace's death. I felt this : I knew him to be cruel ; 
 I believed him to be false. And yet I pitied him ! Is there 
 a common fund of wickedness in us all ? Is the suppression 
 or the development of that wickedness a mere question of 
 training and temptation ? And is there something in our 
 deeper sympathies which mutely acknowledges this when 
 we feel for the wicked ; when we crowd to a criminal trial ; 
 when we shake hands at parting (if we happen to be present 
 officially) with the vilest monster that ever swung on a gal- 
 lows? It is not for me to decide. I can only say that I 
 pitied Miserrimus Dexter and that he found it out. 
 
 " Thank you," he said, suddenly. " You see I am ill, and 
 you feel for me. Dear and good Valeria !" ' 
 
 " This lady's name, sir, is Mrs. Eustace Macallan," inter- 
 posed Benjamin, speaking sternly behind him. " The next 
 time you address her, remember, if you please, that you have 
 no business with her Christian name." 
 
 Benjamin's rebuke passed, like Benjamin's retort, unheed- 
 ed and unheard. To all appearance, Miserrimus Dexter had 
 completely forgotten that there was such a person in the 
 room. 
 
 " You have delighted me with the sight of you," he went 
 on. "Add to the pleasure by letting me hear your voice. 
 Talk to me of yourself. Tell me what you have been doing 
 since you left England." 
 
 It was necessary to my object to set the conversation afloat ; 
 and this was as good a way of doing it as any other. I told 
 him plainly how I had been employed during my absence. 
 
 " So you are still fond of Eustace ?" he said, bitterly. 
 
 " I love him more dearly than ever." 
 
 He lifted his hands, and hid his face. After waiting a 
 while, he went on, speaking in an odd, muffled manner, still 
 under cover of his hands. 
 
 " And you leave Eustace in Spain," he said ; "and you re- 
 turn to England by yourself! What made you do that?" 
 
 " What made me first come here and ask you to help me, 
 Mr. Dexter ?" 
 
 He dropped his hands, and looked at me. I saw in his 
 eyes, not amazement only, but alarm. 
 
 " Is it possible," he exclaimed, " that you won't let that 
 miserable matter rest even yet? Are you still determined 
 to penetrate the mystery at Gleninch ?"
 
 THE LAW AND THE I.ADV. 291 
 
 "I am still determined, Mr. Dexter; and I still hope that 
 you may be able to help me." 
 
 The old distrust that I remembered so well darkened again 
 over his face the moment I said those words. 
 
 " How can I help you ?" he asked. " Can I alter facts ?" 
 He stopped. His lace brightened again, as if some sudden 
 sense of relief had come to him. " I did try to help you," 
 lie went on. " I told you that Mrs. Beauly's absence was a 
 device to screen herself from suspicion ; I told you that the 
 poison might have been given by Mrs. Beauly's maid. Has 
 reflection convinced you ? Do you see something in the 
 idea?" 
 
 This return to Mrs. Beauly gave me my first chance of 
 leading the talk to the right topic. 
 
 " I see nothing in the idea," I answered. " I see no mo- 
 tive. Had the maid any reason to be an enemy to the late 
 Mrs. Eustace ?" 
 
 " Nobody had any reason to be an enemy to the late Mrs. 
 Eustace !" he broke out, loudly and vehemently. " She was 
 all goodness, all kindness; she never injured any human creat- 
 ure in thought or deed. She was a saint upon earth. Re- 
 spect her memory ! Let the martyr rest in her grave !" He 
 covered his face again with his hands, and shook and shud- 
 dered under the paroxysm of emotion that I had roused in him. 
 
 Ariel suddenly and softly left her stool, and approached me. 
 
 "Do you see my ten claws?" she whispered, holding out 
 her hands. " Vex the Master again, and you will feel my 
 ten claws on your throat !" 
 
 Benjamin rose from his seat : he had seen the action, with- 
 out hearing the words. I signed to him to keep his place. 
 Ariel returned to her stool, and looked up again at her 
 master. 
 
 " Don't cry," she said. " Come on. Here are the strings. 
 Tease me again. Make me screech with the smart of it." 
 
 He never answered, and never moved. 
 
 Ariel bent her slow mind to meet the difficulty of attract- 
 ing his attention. I saw it in her frowning brows, in her 
 colorless eyes looking at me vacantly. On a sudden, she joy- 
 fully struck the open palm of one of her hands with the fist 
 of the other. She had triumphed. She had got an idea. 
 
 " Master !" she cried. " Master ! You haven't told me a 
 story for ever so long. Puzzle my thick head. Make my
 
 292 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 flesh creep. Come on. A good long story. All blood and 
 crimes." 
 
 Had she accidentally hit on the right suggestion to strike 
 his wayward fancy ? I knew his high opinion of his own 
 skill in " dramatic narrative." I knew that one of his favor- 
 ite amusements was to puzzle Ariel by telling her stories 
 that she could not understand. Would he wander away 
 into the regions of wild romance ? Or would he remember 
 that my obstinacy still threatened him with reopening the 
 inquiry into the tragedy at Gleriinch ? and would he set his 
 cunning at work to mislead me by some new stratagem? 
 This latter course was the course which my past experience 
 of him suggested that he would take. But, to my surprise 
 and alarm, I found my past experience at fault. Ariel succeed- 
 ed in diverting his mind from the subject which had been in 
 full possession of it the moment before she spoke ! He showed 
 his face again. It was overspread by a broad smile of grati- 
 fied self-esteem. He was weak enough now to let even Ariel 
 find her way to his vanity. I saw it with a sense of misgiv- 
 ing, with a doubt whether I had not delayed my visit until 
 too late, which turned me cold from head to foot. 
 
 Miserrimus Dexter spoke to Ariel, not to me. 
 
 " Poor devil !" he said, patting her head complacently. 
 " You don't understand a word of my stories, do you ? And 
 yet I can make the flesh creep on your great clumsy body 
 and yet I can hold your muddled mind, and make you like 
 it. Poor devil !" He leaned back serenely in his chair, 
 and looked my way again. Would the sight of me remind 
 him of the words that had passed between us not a minute 
 since ? No ! There was the pleasantly tickled self-conceit 
 smiling at me exactly as it had smiled at Ariel. " I excel in 
 dramatic narrative, Mrs.Valeria," he said. " And this creat- 
 ure here on the stool is a remarkable proof of it. She is quite 
 a psychological study when I tell her one of my stories. It is 
 really amusing to see the half-witted wretch's desperate ef- 
 forts to understand me. You shall have a specimen. I have 
 been out of spirits while you were away I haven't told her 
 a story for weeks past ; I will tell her one no.w. Don't sup- 
 pose it's any effort to me ! My invention is inexhaustible. 
 You are sure to be amused you are naturally serious but 
 you are sure to be amused. I am naturally serious too ; and 
 I always laugh at her."
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 293 
 
 Ariel clapped her great shapeless hands. " He always 
 laughs at me.!" she said, with a proud look of superiority 
 directed straight at me. 
 
 I was at a loss, seriously at a loss, what to do. The out- 
 break which I had provoked in leading him to speak of the 
 late Mrs. Eustace warned me to be careful, and to wait for 
 my opportunity before I reverted to that subject. How else 
 could I turn the conversation so as to lead him, little by 
 little, toward the betrayal of the secrets which he was keep- 
 ing from me ? In this uncertainty, one thing only seemed 
 to be plain. To let him tell his story would be simply to 
 let him waste the precious minutes. With a vivid remem- 
 brance of Ariel's " ten claws," I decided, nevertheless, on dis- 
 couraging Dexter's new whim at every possible opportunity 
 and by every means in my power. 
 
 " Now, Mrs. Valeria," he began, loudly and loftily, " listen. 
 Now, Ariel, bring your brains to a focus. I improvise 
 poetry ; I improvise fiction. We will begin with the good 
 old formula of the fairy stories. Once upon a time " 
 
 I was waiting for my opportunity to interrupt him when 
 he interrupted himself. He stopped, with a bewildered look. 
 He put his hand to his head, and passed it backward and 
 forward over his forehead. He laughed feebly. 
 
 " I seem to want rousing," he said. 
 
 Was his mind gone ? There had been no signs of it until I 
 had unhappily stirred his memory of the dead mistress of 
 Gleninch. Was the weakness which I had already noticed, 
 was the bewilderment which I now saw, attributable to the 
 influence of a passing disturbance only ? In other words, 
 had I witnessed nothing more serious than a first warning to 
 him and to us ? Would he soon recover himself, if we were 
 patient, and gave him time ? Even Benjamin was interested 
 at last ; I saw him trying to look at Dexter around the cor- 
 ner of the chair. Even Ariel was surprised and uneasy. She 
 had no dark glances to cast at me now. 
 
 We all waited to see what he would do, ,to hear what he 
 would say, next. 
 
 " My harp!" he cried. "Music will rouse me." 
 
 Ariel brought him his harp. 
 
 ' Master," she said, wonderingly, " what's come to you "ih- 
 
 He waved his hand, commanding her to be silent. .0 my 
 
 "Ode to Invention," he announced, loftily, addrc-ssi-
 
 294 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 self to me. "Poetry and music improvised by Dexter. Si- 
 lence ! Attention !" 
 
 His fingers wandered feebly over the harp-strings, awak- 
 ening no melody, suggesting no words. In a little while 
 his hand dropped ; his head sank forward gently, and rested 
 on the frame of the harp. I started to my feet, and ap- 
 proached him. Was it a sleep ? or was it a swoon ? 
 
 I touched his arm, and called to him by his name. 
 
 Ariel instantly stepped between us, with a threatening 
 look at me. At the same moment Miserrimus Dexter raised 
 his head. My voice had reached him. He looked at me 
 with a curious contemplative quietness in his eyes which I 
 had never seen in them before. 
 
 " Take away the harp," he said to Ariel, speaking in lan- 
 guid tones, like a man who was very weary. 
 
 The mischievous, half-witted creature in sheer stupidity 
 or in downright malice, I am not sure which irritated him 
 once more. 
 
 " Why, Master?" she asked, staring at him with the harp 
 hugged in her arms. " What's come to you ? where is the 
 story ?" 
 
 " We don't want the story," I interposed. " I have many 
 things to say to Mr. Dexter which I have not said yet." 
 
 Ariel lifted her heavy hand. " You will have it !" she 
 said, and advanced toward me. At the same moment the 
 Master's voice stopped her. 
 
 " Put away the harp, you fool !" he repeated, sternly. 
 "And wait for the story until I choose to tell it." 
 
 She took the harp submissively back to its place at the end 
 of the room. Miserrimus Dexter moved his chair a little 
 closer to mine. "I know what will rouse me," he said, con- 
 fidentially. "Exercise will do it. I have had no exercise 
 lately. Wait a little, and you will see." 
 
 He put his hands on the machinery of the chair, and start- 
 ed on his customary course down the room. Here again the 
 ominous change in him showed itself under a new form. 
 The pace at which he traveled was not the furious pace that 
 I remembered ; the chair no longer rushed under him on 
 Crumbling and whistling wheels. It went, but it went slow- 
 You Up the room and down the room he painfully urged it 
 you a? then he stopped for want of breath. 
 I al \vayiollo wed him. Ariel was first, and Benjamin was by
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 295 
 
 my side. He motioned impatiently to both of them to stand 
 back, and to let me approach him alone. 
 
 " I'm out of practice," he said, faintly. " I hadn't the 
 heart to make the wheels roar and the floor tremble while 
 you were away." 
 
 Who would not have pitied him? Who would have re- 
 membered his misdeeds at that moment? Even Ariel felt 
 it. I heard her beginning to whine and whimper behind 
 me. The magician who alone could rouse the dormant sen- 
 sibilities in her nature had awakened them now by his neg- 
 lect. Her fatal cry was heard again, in mournful, moaning 
 tones 
 
 " What's come to you, Master ? Where's the story ?" 
 
 "Never mind her," I whispered to him. "You want the 
 fresh air. Send for the gardener. Let us take a drive in 
 your pony-chaise." 
 
 It was useless. Ariel would be noticed. The mournful 
 cry came once more 
 
 "Where's the" story? where's the story?" 
 
 The sinking spirit leaped up in Dexter again. 
 
 " You wretch ! you fiend !" he cried, whirling his chair 
 around, and facing her. " The story is coming. I can tell 
 it ! I will tell it ! Wine ! You whimpering idiot, get me 
 the wine. Why didn't I think of it before? The kingly 
 Burgundy ! that's what I want, Valeria, to set my invention 
 alight and flaming in my head. Glasses for every body ! 
 Honor to the King of the Vintages the Royal Clos Vou- 
 geot !" 
 
 Ariel opened the cupboard in the alcove, and produced 
 the wine and the high Venetian glasses. Dexter drained 
 his gobletful of Burgundy at a draught ; he forced us to 
 drink (or at least to pretend to drink) with him. Even Ariel 
 had her share this time, and emptied her glass in rivalry 
 with her master. The powerful wine mounted almost in- 
 stantly to her weak head. She began to sing hoarsely a 
 song of her own devising, in imitation of Dexter. It was 
 nothing but the repetition, the endless mechanical repetition, 
 of her demand for the story " Tell us the story. Master ! 
 master! tell us the story!" Absorbed over his wine, the 
 Master silently filled his goblet for the second time. I'x-ii- 
 jainin whispered to me, while his eye was off us, "Take my 
 advice, Valeria, for once ; let us go."
 
 296 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 " One last effort," I whispered back. " Only one !" 
 
 Ariel went drowsily on with her song 
 
 " Tell us the story. ' Master ! master ! tell us the story." 
 
 Miserrimus Dexter looked up from his glass. The gener- 
 ous stimulant was beginning to do its work. I saw the col- 
 or rising in his face. I saw the bright intelligence flashing 
 again in his eyes. The Burgundy had roused him! The 
 good wine stood my friend, and offered me a last chance ! 
 
 " No story," I said. " I want to talk to you, Mr. Dexter. 
 I am not in the humor for a story." 
 
 " Not in the humor?" he repeated, with a gleam of the old 
 impish irony showing itself again in his face. " That's an 
 excuse. I see what it is ! You think my invention is gone 
 and you are not frank enough to confess it. I'll show you 
 you're wrong. I'll show you that Dexter is himself again. 
 Silence, you Ariel, or you shall leave the room ! I have got 
 it, Mrs. Valeria, all laid out here, with scenes and chai'acters 
 complete." He touched his forehead, and looked at me with 
 a furtive and smiling cunning before he added his next 
 words. " It's the very thing to interest you, my fair friend. 
 It's the story of a Mistress and a Maid. Come back to the 
 fire and hear it." 
 
 The Story of a Mistress and a Maid ? If that meant any 
 thing, it meant the story of Mrs. Beauly and her maid, told 
 in disguise. 
 
 The title, and the look which had escaped him when he an- 
 nounced it, revived the hope that was well-nigh dead in me. 
 He had rallied at last. He was again in possession of his 
 natural foresight and his natural cunning. Under pretense 
 of telling Ariel her story, he was evidently about to make 
 the attempt to mislead me for the second time. The con- 
 clusion was irresistible. To use his own words Dexter 
 was himself again. 
 
 I took Benjamin's arm as we followed him back to the fire- 
 place in the middle of the room. " There is a chance for me 
 yet," I whispered. " Don't forget the signals." 
 
 We returned to the 'places which we had already occu- 
 pied. Ariel cast another threatening look at me. She had 
 just sense enough left, after emptying her goblet of wine, to 
 be on the watch for a new interruption on my part. I took 
 care, of course, that nothing of the sort should happen. I 
 was now as eager as Ariel to hear the story. The subject
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 297 
 
 was full of snares for the narrator. At any moment, in the 
 excitement of speaking, Dexter's memory of the true events 
 might show itself reflected in the circumstances of the fic- 
 tion. At any moment he might betray himself. 
 
 lie looked around him, and began. 
 
 " My public, are you seated ? My public, are you ready ?" 
 he asked, gayly. " Your face a little more this way," he add- 
 ed, in his softest and tenderest tones, motioning to me to 
 turn my full face toward him. "Surely I am not asking too 
 much ? You look at the meanest creature that crawls look 
 at Me. Let me find my inspiration in your eyes. Let me 
 feed my hungry admiration on your form. Come, have one 
 little pitying smile left for the man whose happiness you 
 have wrecked. Thank you, Light of my Life, thank you !" 
 He kissed his hand to me, and threw himself back luxurious- 
 ly in his chair. " The story," he resumed. " The story at 
 last! In what form shall I cast it? In the dramatic form 
 the oldest way, the truest way, the shortest way of telling 
 a story! Title first. A short title, a taking title: 'Mis- 
 tress and Maid.' Scene, the land of romance Italy. Time, 
 the age of romance the fifteenth" century. Ha! look at 
 Ariel. She knows no more about the fifteenth century than 
 the cat in the kitchen, and yet she is interested already. 
 Happy Ariel !" 
 
 Ariel looked at me again, in the double intoxication of the 
 wine and the triumph. 
 
 "I know no more than the cat in the kitchen," she repeat- 
 ed, with a broad grin of gratified vanity. " I am ' happy 
 Ariel !' What are you ?" 
 
 Miserrimus Dexter laughed uproariously. 
 
 " Didn't I tell you ?" he said. " Isn't she fun ? Persons 
 of the Drama," he resumed : " three in number. Women 
 only. Angelica, a noble lady; noble alike in spirit and in 
 birth. Cunegonda, a beautiful devil in woman's form. Da- 
 moride, her unfortunate maid. First scene : a dark vaulted 
 chamber in a castle. Time, evening. The owls are hoot- 
 ing in the wood ; the frogs are creating in the marsh. Look 
 at Ariel ! Her flesh creeps; she shudders audibly. Admir- 
 able Ariel !" 
 
 My rival in the Master's favor eyed me defiantly. "Ad- 
 mirable Ariel !" she repeated, in drowsy accents. Miserrimus 
 Dexter paused to take up his goblet of Burgundy placed
 
 298 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 close at hand on a little sliding table attached to his chair. 
 I watched him narrowly as he sipped the wine. The flush 
 was still mounting in his face ; the light was still brightening 
 in his eyes. He set down his glass again, with a jovial smack 
 of his lips and went on : 
 
 " Persons present in the vaulted chamber : Cunegonda and 
 Damoride. Cunegonda speaks. ' Damoride !' ' Madam ?' 
 ' Who lies ill in the chamber above us ?' ' Madam, the no- 
 ble lady Angelica.' (A pause. Cunegonda speaks again.) 
 'Damoride!' 'Madam?' 'How does Angelica like you?' 
 'Madam, the noble la ly, sweet and good to all who approach 
 her, is sweet and good to me.' ' Have you attended on her, 
 Damoride ?' ' Sometimes, madam, when the nurse was weary.' 
 ' Has she taken her healing medicine from your hand ?' ' Once 
 or twice, madam, when I happened to be by.' 'Damoride, 
 take this key and open the casket on the table there.' (Damo- 
 ride obeys.) 'Do you see a green vial in the casket?' 'I 
 see it, madam.' ' Take it out.' (Damoride obeys.) ' Do you 
 see a liquid in the green vial? can you guess what it is?' 
 ' No, madam.' ' Shall I tell you ?' (Damoride bows respect- 
 fully.) ' Poison is in the vial.' (Damoride starts ; she shrinks 
 from the poison ; she would fain put it aside. Her mistress 
 signs to her to keep it in her hand ; her mistress speaks.) 
 ' Damoride, I have told you one of my secrets ; shall I tell 
 you another?' (Damoride waits, fearing what is to come. 
 Her mistress speaks.) 'I hate the Lady Angelica. Her life 
 stands between me and the joy of my heart. You hold her 
 life in your hand.' (Damoride drops on her knees; she is a 
 devout person ; she crosses herself, and then she speaks.) 
 ' Mistress, you terrify me. Mistress, what do I hear?' (Cune- 
 gonda advances, stands over her, looks down on her with 
 terrible eyes, whispers the next words.) 'Damoride! the 
 Lady Angelica must die and I must not be suspected. The 
 Lady Angelica must die and by your hand.' " 
 
 He paused again. To sip the wine once more? No; to 
 drink a deep draught of it this time. 
 
 Was the stimulant befinning to fail him already? 
 
 I looked at him attentively as he laid himself back again 
 in his chair to consider for a moment before he went on. 
 
 The flush on his face was as deep as ever ; but the bright- 
 ness in his eyes was beginning to fade already. I had no^ 
 ticed that he spoke more and more slowly as he advanced to
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 299 
 
 the later dialogue of the scene. "Was he feeling the effort 
 of invention already? Had the time come when the wine 
 had done all that the wine could do for him ? 
 
 We waited. Ariel sat watching him with vacantly star- 
 ing eyes and vacantly open mouth. Benjamin, impenetrably 
 expecting the signal, kept his open note-book on his knee, 
 covered by his hand. 
 
 Miserrimus Dexter went on : 
 
 " Damoride hears those terrible words ; Damoride clasps 
 her hands in entreaty. ' Oh, madam ! madam ! how can I 
 kill the dear and noble lady ? What motive have I for harm- 
 ing her ?' Cunegonda answers, ' You have the motive of 
 obeying Me.' (Damoride falls with her face on the floor at 
 her mistress's feet.) ' Madam, I can not do it ! Madam, I dare 
 not do it!' Cunegonda answers, 'You run no risk: I have 
 my plan for diverting discovery from myself, and my plan 
 for diverting discovery. from you.' Damoride repeats, ' I can 
 not do it ! I dare not do it !' Cunegonda's eyes flash 
 lightnings of rage. She takes from its place of concealment 
 in her bosom " 
 
 He stopped in the middle of the sentence, and put his hand 
 to his head not like a man in pain, but like a man who had 
 lost his idea. 
 
 Would it be well if I tried to help him to recover his idea? 
 or would it be wiser (if I could only do it) to keep silence ? 
 
 I could see the drift of his story plainly enough. His ob- 
 ject, under the thin disguise of the Italian romance, was to 
 meet my unanswerable objection to suspecting Mrs. Beauly's 
 maid the objection that the woman had no motive for com- 
 mitting herself to an act of murder. If he could practically 
 contradict this, by discovering a motive which I should be 
 obliged to admit, his end would be gained. Those inquiries 
 which I had pledged myself to pursue those inquiries which 
 might, at any moment, take a turn that directly concerned 
 him would, in that ca*<?, be successfully diverted from the 
 right to the wrong person. The innocent maid would set 
 my strictest scrutiny at defiance ;an,d Dexter would be 
 safely shielded behind her. 
 
 I determined to give him time. Not a word passed my lips. 
 
 The minutes followed each other. I waited in the deepest 
 anxiety. It was a trying and a critical moment. If he suc- 
 ceeded in inventing a probable motive, and in shaping it
 
 300 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 neatly to suit the purpose of his story, he would prove, by 
 that act alone, that there were reserves of mental power still 
 left in him which the practiced eye of the Scotch doctor had 
 failed to see. But the question was would he do it ? 
 
 He did it ! Not in a new way ; not in a convincing way ; 
 not without a painfully evident effort. Still, well done or ill 
 done, he found a motive for the maid. 
 
 " Cunegonda," he resumed, " takes from its place of con- 
 cealment in her bosom a written paper, and unfolds it. ' Look 
 at this,' she says. Damoride looks at the paper, and sinks 
 again at her mistress's feet in a paroxysm of horror and de- 
 spair. Cunegonda is in possession of a shameful secret in 
 the maid's past life. Cunegonda can say to her, ' Choose your 
 alternative. Either submit to an exposure which disgraces 
 you and disgraces your parents forever or make up your 
 mind to obey Me.' Damoride might submit to the disgrace 
 if it only affected herself. But her parents are honest peo- 
 ple ; she can not disgrace her parents. She is driven to her 
 last refuge there is no hope of melting the hard heart of 
 Cunegonda. Her only resource is to raise difficulties; she 
 tries to show that there are obstacles between her and the 
 crime. ' Madam ! madam !' she cries ; ' how can I do it, when 
 the nurse is there to see me ?' Cunegonda answers, ' Some- 
 times the nurse sleeps ; sometimes the nurse is away.' Damo- 
 ride still persists. ' Madam ! madam ! the door is kept locked, 
 and the nurse has got the key.' " 
 
 The key ! I instantly thought of the missing key at Glen- 
 inch. Had he thought of it too ? He certainly checked him- 
 self as the word escaped him. I resolved to make the signal. 
 I rested my elbow on the arm of my chair, and played with 
 my earring. Benjamin took out his pencil and arranged his 
 note-book so that Ariel could not see what he was about if 
 she happened to look his way. 
 
 We waited until it pleased Miserrimus Dexter to proceed. 
 The interval was a long one. His" hand went up again to 
 his forehead. A duller and duller look was palpably stealing 
 over his eyes. When he did speak, it was not to -go on with 
 the narrative, but to put a question. 
 
 " Where did I leave off?" he asked. 
 
 My hopes sank again as rapidly as they had risen. I man- 
 aged to answer him, however, without showing any change 
 in my manner.
 
 THE LAW AM) THE LADY. 301 
 
 " You left off," I said, " where Damoride was speaking to 
 Cunegonda " 
 
 "Yes, yes!" he interposed. "And what did she say?" 
 
 " She said, ' The door is kept locked, and the nurse has got 
 the key.'" 
 
 lie instantly leaned forward in his chair. 
 
 " No !" he answered, vehemently. " You're wrong. ' Key ?' 
 Nonsense ! I never said ' Key.' " 
 
 " I thought you did, Mr. Dexter." 
 
 " I never did ! I said something else, and you have for- 
 gotten it." 
 
 I refrained from disputing with him, in fear of what might 
 follow. We waited again. Benjamin, sullenly submitting 
 to my caprices, had taken down the questions and answers 
 that had passed between Dexter and myself. He still me- 
 chanically kept his page open, and still held his pencil in 
 readiness to go on. Ariel, quietly submitting to the drowsy 
 influence of the Avine while Dexter's voice was in her ears, 
 felt uneasily the change to silence. She glanced round her 
 restlessly ; she lifted her eyes to " the Master." 
 
 There he sat, silent, with his hand to his head, still strug- 
 gling to marshal his wandering thoughts, still trying to sec 
 light through the darkness that was closing round him. 
 
 " Master !" cried Ariel,' piteously. " What's become of 
 the story ?" 
 
 He started as if she had awakened him out of a sleep; he 
 shook his head impatiently, as though he wanted to throw 
 off some oppression that weighed upon it. 
 
 "Patience, patience," he said. "The story is going on 
 again." 
 
 He dashed at it.desperately ; he picked up the first lost 
 thread that fell in his way, reckless whether it were the right 
 thread or the wrong one : 
 
 "Damoride fell on her knees. She burst into tears. She 
 said" 
 
 He stopped, and looked about him with vacant eyes. 
 
 "What name did I give the other woman?" he asked, 
 not putting the question to me, or to either of my compan- 
 ions: asking it of himself, or asking it of the empty air. 
 
 " You called the other woman Cunegonda," I said. 
 
 At the sound of my voice his eyes turned slowly turned 
 on me, and yet failed to look at me. Dull and absent, still 
 O
 
 302 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 and changeless, they were eyes that seemed to be fixed on 
 something fur away. Even his voice was altered when lie 
 spoke next. It had dropped to a quiet, vacant, monotonous 
 tone. I had heard something like it while I was watching 
 by my husband's bedside, at the time of his delirium when 
 Eustace's mind appeared to be too weary to follow his speech. 
 Was the end so near as this? 
 
 "I called her Cunegonda," he repeated. "And I called 
 the other " 
 
 He stopped once more. 
 
 "And you called the other Damoride," I said. 
 
 Ariel looked up at him with a broad stare of bewilder- 
 ment. She pulled impatiently at the sleeve of his jacket to 
 attract his notice. 
 
 " Is this the story, Master ?" she asked. 
 
 He answered without looking at her, his changeless eyes 
 still fixed, as it seemed, on something far away. 
 
 " This is the story," he said, absently. " But why Cune- 
 gonda? why Damoride ? Why not Mistress and Maid ? It's 
 easier to remember Mistress and Maid " 
 
 He hesitated ; he shivered as he tried to raise himself in 
 his chair. Then he seemed to rally. " What did the Maid 
 say to the Mistress ?" he muttered. " What ? what ? what ?" 
 He hesitated again. Then something seemed to dawn upon 
 him unexpectedly. Was it some new thought that had 
 struck him ? or some lost thought that he had recovered ? 
 Impossible to say. 
 
 He went on, suddenly and rapidly went on, in these strange 
 words : 
 
 " ' The letter,' the Maid said ; ' the letter. Oh, my heart. 
 Every word a dagger. A dagger in my heart. Oh, you let- 
 ter. Horrible, horrible, horrible letter.' " 
 
 What, in God's name, was he talking about? What did 
 those words mean ? 
 
 Was he unconsciously pursuing his faint and fragmentary 
 recollections of a past time at Gleninch, under the delusion 
 that he was going on with the story? In the wreck of the 
 other faculties, was memory the last to sink ? Was the truth, 
 the dreadful truth, glimmering on me dimly through the aw- 
 ful shadow cast before it by the advancing eclipse of the 
 brain ? My breath failed me ; a nameless horror crept through 
 my whole being.
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 303 
 
 Benjamin, with his pencil in his hand, cast one warning 
 look at me. Ariel was quiet and satisfied. " Go on, Mas- 
 ter," was all she said. "I like it ! I like it ! Go on with 
 the story." 
 
 He went on like a man sleeping with his eyes open, and 
 talking in his sleep. 
 
 " The Maid said to the Mistress. No the Mistress said 
 to the Maid. The Mistress said, ' Show him the letter. Must, 
 must, must do it.' The Maid said, 'No. Mustn't do it. Sha'n't 
 show it. Stuff. Nonsense. Let him suffer. We can get him 
 off. Show it ? No. Let the worst come to the worst. Show 
 it, then.' The Mistress said " He paused, and waved his 
 hand rapidly to and fro before his eyes, as if he were brush- 
 ing away some visionary confusion or entanglement. " Which 
 was it last?" he said "Mistress or Maid? Mistress? No. 
 Maid speaks, of course. Loud. Positive. ' You scoundrels. 
 Keep away from that table. The Diary's there. Number 
 ]S"ine, Caldcrshaws. Ask for Dandie. You sha'n't have the 
 Diary. A secret ia your ear. The Diary will hang him. I 
 won't have him hanged. How dare you touch my chair? 
 My chair is Me ! How dare you touch Me ?'" 
 
 The last words burst on me like a gleam of light ! I had 
 read them in the Report of the Trial in the evidence of the 
 sheriff's officer. Miserrimus Dexter had spoken in those very 
 terms when he had tried vainly to prevent the men from seiz- 
 ing my husband's papers, and when the men had pushed his 
 chair out of the room. There was no doubt now of what his 
 memory was busy with. The mystery at Gleninch ! His last 
 backward flight of thought circled feebly and.^norc feebly 
 nearer and nearer to the mystery at Gleninch! 
 
 Ariel aroused him again. She had no mercy on him ; she 
 insisted on hearing the whole story. 
 
 "Why do you stop, Master? Get along with it! get 
 along with it ! Tell us quick what did the Missus say to 
 the Maid V" 
 
 He laughed feebly, and tried to imitate her. 
 
 '"What did the 'Missus say to the Maid?'" he repeated. 
 His laugh died away. He went on speaking, more and more 
 vacr.ntly, more and more rapidly. "The Mistress said to 
 the Maid, ' We've got him off. What about the letter? 
 Burn it now. No fire in the grate. Xo matches in the box. 
 Huuse topsy-turvy. Servants all gone. Tear it up. Shake
 
 304 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 it up in the basket. Along with the rest. Shake it up. 
 Waste paper. Throw it away. Gone forever. Oh, Sara, 
 Sara, Sara ! Gone forever.' " 
 
 Ariel clapped her hands, and mimicked him in her turn. 
 
 " ' Oh, Sara, Sara, Sara !' " she repeated. " ' Gone forever.' 
 That's prime, Master ! Tell us who was Sara?" 
 
 His lips moved, but his voice sank so low that I could 
 barely hear him. He began again, with the old melancholy 
 refrain : 
 
 " The Maid said to the Mistress. No the Mistress said 
 to the Maid " He stopped abruptly, and raised himself 
 erect in the chair; he threw up both his hands above his 
 head, and burst into a frightful screaming laugh. "Aha- 
 ha-ha-ha ! How funny ! Why don't you laugh ? Funny, 
 funny, funny, funny. Aha-ha-ha-ha-ha " 
 
 He fell back in the chair. The shrill and dreadful laugh 
 died away into a low sob. Then there was one long, deep, 
 wearily drawn breath. Then nothing but a mute, vacant 
 face turned up to the ceiling, with eyes that looked blindly, 
 with lips parted in a senseless, changeless grin. Nemesis at 
 last ! The foretold doom had fallen on him. The night had 
 
 But one feeling animated me when the first shock was over. 
 Even the horror of that fearful sight seemed only to increase 
 the pity that I felt for the stricken wretch. I started im- 
 pulsively to my feet. Seeing nothing, thinking of nothing 
 but the helpless figure in the chair, I sprang forward to raise 
 him, to revj^c him, to recall him (if such a thing might still 
 be possible) to himself. At the first step that I took, I felt 
 hands on me I was violently drawn back. " Are you blind ?" 
 cried Benjamin, dragging me nearer and nearer to the door. 
 " Look there !" 
 
 He pointed; and I looked. 
 
 Ariel had been beforehand with me. She had raised her 
 master in the chair ; she had got one arm around him. In 
 her free hand she brandished an Indian club, torn from a 
 "trophy" of Oriental weapons that ornamented the wall 
 over the fire-place. The creature was transfigured ! Her 
 dull eyes glared like the eyes of a wild animal. She gnashed 
 her teeth in the frenzy that possessed her. " You have done 
 this !" she shouted to me, waving the club furiously around
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADV. 305 
 
 and around over her head. " Come near him, and I'll dash 
 your brains out ! I'll mash 3-011 till there's not a whole bone 
 left in your skin !" Benjamin, still holding me with one hand, 
 opened the door with the other. I let him do with me as he 
 would ; Ariel fascinated me ; I could look at nothing but 
 Ariel. Her frenzy vanished' as she saw us retreating. She 
 dropped the club; she threw both arms around him, and 
 nestled her head on his bosom, and sobbed and wept over 
 him. " Master ! master ! They sha'n't vex you any more. 
 Look up again. Laugh at me as you used to do. Say, 'Ari- 
 el, you're a fool.' Be like yourself again !" I was forced 
 into the next room. I heard a long, low, wailing cry of mis- 
 ery from the poor creature who loved him with a dog's fidel- 
 ity and a woman's devotion. The heavy door was closed be- 
 tween us. I was in the quiet antechamber, crying over that 
 piteous sight ; clinging to my kind old friend as helpless and 
 as useless as a child. 
 
 Benjamin turned the key in the lock. 
 
 " There's no use in crying about it," he said, quietly. " It 
 would be more to the pappose, Valeria, if you thanked God 
 that you have got out of that room safe and sound. Come 
 with me." 
 
 He took the key out of the lock, and led rne down-stairs 
 into the hall. After a- little consideration, he opened the 
 front door of the house. The gardener was still quietly at 
 work in the grounds. 
 
 "Your master is taken ill," Benjamin said; "and the 
 woman who attends upon him has lost her head if she 
 ever had a head, to lose. Where docs the Barest doctor 
 live ?" 
 
 The man's devotion to Dexter showed itself as the wom- 
 an's devotion had shown itself in the man's rough way. 
 He threw down his spade with an oath. 
 
 " The Master taken bad ?" he said. " I'll fetch the doctor. 
 I shall find him sooner than you will." 
 
 "Tell the doctor to bring a man with him," Benjamin 
 added. "He may want help." 
 
 The gardener turned around sternly. 
 
 "I'm the man," he said. " Xobody shall help but me." 
 
 He left us. I sat down on one of the chairs in the hall, 
 and did my best to compose myself. Benjamin walked to 
 and fro, deep in thought. " Both of them fond of him," I
 
 30G THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 heard my old friend say to himself. " Half monkey, half 
 man and both of them fond of him. That beats me." 
 
 The gardener returned with the doctor a quiet, dark, 
 resolute man. Benjamin advanced to meet them. " I have 
 got the key," he said. " Shall I go up-stairs with you ?" 
 
 Without answering, the doctor drew Benjamin aside into 
 a corner of the hall. The two talked together in low voices. 
 At the end of it the doctor said, " Give me the key. You 
 can be of no use ; you will only irritate her." 
 
 With those words he beckoned to the gardener. He was 
 about to lead the way up the stairs when I ventured to stop 
 him. 
 
 " May I stay in the hall, sir ?" I said. " I am very anxious 
 to hear how it ends." 
 
 He looked at me for a moment before he replied. 
 
 " You had better go home, madam," he said. " Is the 
 gardener acquainted with your address ?" 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 "Very well. I will let you know how it ends by means 
 of the gardener. Take my advice. Go home." 
 
 Benjamin placed my arm in his. I looked back, and saw 
 the doctor and the gardener ascending the stairs together 
 on their way to the lockcd-up room. 
 
 "Never mind the doctor," I whispered. "Let's wait in 
 the garden." ^ 
 
 Benjamin would not hear of deceiving the doctor. " I 
 mean to take you home," he said. I locked at him in amaze- 
 ment. My old friend, who was all meekness and submission 
 so long as there was no emergency to try him, now showed 
 the dormant reserve of manly spirit and decision in his nat- 
 ure as he had never (in my experience) shown it yet. He 
 led me into the garden. We had kept our cab : it was wait- 
 ing for us at the gate. 
 
 On our way home Benjamin produced his note-book. 
 
 " What's to be done, my dear, with the gibberish that I 
 have written here ?" he said. 
 
 " Have you written it all down ?" I asked, in surprise. 
 
 "When I undertake a duty, I do it," he answered. " You 
 never gave me the signal to leave off you never moved 
 your chair. I have written every word of it. What shall I 
 do ? Throw it out of the cab window ?" 
 
 "Give it to me."
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 307 
 
 ' : What are you going to tlo with it?" 
 
 " I don't know yet. I will ask Mr. Piny more." 
 
 CHAPTER XLI. 
 
 ME. PLAYMOEE IN A NEW CHARACTER. 
 
 BY that night's post although I was far from being fit to 
 make the exertion I wrote to Mr. Playraore, to tell him 
 what had taken place, and to beg for his earliest assistance 
 and advice. 
 
 The notes in Benjamin's book were partly written in short- 
 hand, and were, on that account, of no use to me in their ex- 
 isting condition. At my request, he made two fair copies. 
 One of the copies I inclosed in my letter to Mr. Play more. 
 The other I laid by me, on my bedside table, when I went 
 to rest. 
 
 Over and over again, through the long hours of the wake- 
 ful night, I read and reread the last words which had 
 dropped from Miserrimus Dexter's lips. Was it possible to 
 interpret them to any useful purpose? At the very outset 
 they seemed to set interpretation at defiance. After trying 
 vainly to solve the hopeless problem, I did at last what I 
 might as well have done at first I threw down the paper in 
 despair. Where were my bright visions of discovery and 
 success now ? Scattered to the winds ! Was there the 
 faintest chance of the stricken man's return to reason ? I 
 remembered too well what I had seen to hope for it. The 
 closing lines of the medical report which I had read in Mr. 
 Playmore's oflice recurred to my memory in the stillness of 
 the night u When the catastrophe has happened, his friends 
 can entertain no hope of his cure: the balance once lost, will 
 be lost for life." 
 
 The confirmation of that terrible sentence was not long in 
 reaching me. On the next morning the gardener brought a 
 note containing the information which the doctor had prom- 
 ised to give me on the previous day. 
 
 Miserrimus Dexter and Ariel were still where Benjamin 
 and I had left them together in the long room. They were 
 watched by skilled attendants, waiting the decision of Dex- 
 ter's nearest relative (a younger brother), who lived in the
 
 308 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 country, and who had been communicated with by telegraph. 
 It had been found impossible to part the faithful Ariel from 
 her master without using the bodily restraints adopted in 
 cases of raging insanity. The doctor and the gardener (both 
 unusually strong men) had failed to hold the poor creature 
 when they first attempted to remove her on entering the 
 room. Directly they permitted her to return to her master 
 the frenzy vanished : she was perfectly quiet and contented 
 so long as they -let her sit at his feet and look at him. 
 
 Sad as this was, the report of Miserrimus Dexter's condi- 
 tion was more melancholy still. 
 
 " My patient is in a state of absolute imbecility " those 
 were the words in the doctor's letter ; and the gardener's 
 simple narrative confirmed them as the truest words that 
 could have been used. He was utterly unconscious of poor 
 Ariel's devotion to him he did not even appear to know 
 that she was present in the room. For hours together he 
 remained in a state of utter lethargy in his chair. He showed 
 an animal interest in his meals, and a greedy animal enjoy- 
 ment of eating and drinking as much as he could get and 
 that was all. " This morning," the honest gardener said to 
 me at parting, " we thought he seemed to wake up a bit. 
 Looked about him, you know, and made queer signs with his 
 hands. I couldn't make out what he meant ; no more could 
 the doctor. She knew, poor thing she did. "Went and got 
 him his harp, and put his hand up to it. Lord bless you ! 
 no use. He couldn't play no more than I can. Twanged at 
 it anyhow, and grinned and gabbled to himself. No : he'll 
 never come right again. Any person can see that, without 
 the doctor to help 'em. Enjoys his meals, as I told you ; 
 and that's all. It would be the best thing that could happen 
 if it would please God to take him. There's no more to be 
 said. I wish you good-morning, ma'am." 
 
 He went away with the tears in his eyes ; and he left me, 
 I own it, with the tears in mine. 
 
 An hour later there came some news which revived me. 
 I received a telegram from Mr. Playmore, expressed in these 
 welcome words : " Obliged to go to London by to-night's 
 mail train. Expect me to breakfas't to-morrow morning." 
 
 The appearance of the lawyer at our breakfast-table duly 
 followed the appearance of his telegram. His first words
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADV. 309 
 
 cheered me. ' To my infinite surprise and relief, lie was far 
 from sharing the despondent view which I took of rny position. 
 
 " I don't deny," he said, " that tliere are some serious ob- 
 stacles in your way. 13 ut I should never have called here 
 before attending to my professional business in London if Mr. 
 Benjamin's notes had not produced a very strong impression 
 on my mind. For the first time, as I think, you really have 
 a prospect of success. For the first time, I feel justified in 
 offering (under certain restrictions) to help you. That mis- 
 erable wretch, in the collapse of his intelligence, has done 
 what he would never have done in the possession of his 
 sense and his cunning he has let us see the first precious 
 glimmerings of the light of truth." 
 
 "Are you sure it is the truth?" I asked. 
 
 "In two important particulars," he answered, "I know it 
 to be the truth. Your idea about him is the right one. His 
 memory (as you suppose) was the least injured of his facul- 
 ties, and was the last to give way under the strain of trying 
 to tell that story. I believe his memory to have been speak- 
 ing to you (unconsciously to himself) in all that he said 
 from the moment when the first reference to 'the letter' es- 
 caped him to the end." 
 
 " But what does the reference to the letter mean ?" I 
 asked. " For my part, I am entirely in the dark about it." 
 
 "So am I," he answered, frankly. "The chief one among 
 the obstacles which I mentioned just now is the obstacle 
 presented by that same ' letter.' The late Mrs. Eustace must 
 have been connected with it in some way, or Dexter would 
 never have spoken of it as 'a dagger in his heart;' Dexter 
 would never have coupled her name with the words which 
 describe the tearing up of the letter and the throwing of it 
 away. I can arrive with some certainty at this result, and 
 I can get no farther. I have no more idea than you have of 
 who wrote the letter, or of what was written in it. If we 
 are ever to make that discovery probably the most impor- 
 tant discovery of all we must dispatch our first inquiries a 
 distance of three thousand miles. In plain English, my dear 
 lady, we must send to America." 
 
 This, naturally enough, took me completely by surprise. 
 I waited eagerly to hear why we were to send to America. 
 
 "It rests with you," he proceeded," when you hear what 
 I have to tell, yon, to say whether you will go to the expense 
 'J
 
 310 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 of sending a man to New York, or not. I can find the right 
 man for the purpose ; and I estimate the expense (including 
 a telegram)" 
 
 "Never mind the expense !" I interposed, losing all patience 
 with the eminently Scotch view of the case which put my 
 purse in the first place of importance. " I don't care ibr the 
 expense ; I want to know what you have discovered." 
 
 He smiled. "She doesn't care for the expense," he said to 
 himself, pleasantly. "How like a woman !" 
 
 I might have retorted, "He thinks of the expense before 
 he thinks of any thing else. How like a Scotchman !" As it 
 was, I was too anxious to be witty. I only drummed im- 
 patiently with my fingers on the table, and said, "Tell me! 
 tell me !" 
 
 He took out the fair copy from Benjamin's note-book which 
 I had sent to him, and showed me these among Dexter's clos- 
 ing words : "What about the letter? Burn it now. No fire 
 in the grate. No matches in the box. House topsy-turvy. 
 Servants all gone." 
 
 "Do you really understand what those words mean?" I 
 asked. 
 
 "I look back into my own experience," he answered, " and 
 I understand perfectly what the words mean." 
 
 "And can you make me understand them too?" 
 
 "Easily. In those incomprehensible sentences Dexter's 
 memory has correctly recalled certain facts. I have only to 
 tell you the facts, and you will be as wise as I am. At the 
 time of the Trial, your husband surprised and distressed me 
 by insisting on the instant dismissal of all the household 
 servants at Gleninch. I was instructed to pay them a quar- 
 ter's wages in advance, to give them the excellent written 
 characters which their good conduct thoroughly deserved, 
 and to see the house clear of them, at an hour's notice. Eus- 
 tace's motive for this summary proceeding was much the 
 same motive which animated his conduct toward you. 'If 
 I am ever to return to Gleninch,' he said, 'I can not face my 
 honest servants after the infamy of having stood my trial 
 for murder.' There was his reason. Nothing that I could 
 say to him, poor fellow, shook his resolution. I dismissed 
 the servants accordingly. At an hour's notice, they quitted 
 the house, leaving their work for the day all undone. The 
 only persons placed in charge of Gleninch were persons who
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 311 
 
 lived on the outskirts of the park that is to say, the lodge- 
 kccpcv and his wife and daughter. Ou the last day "of the 
 Trial I instructed the daughter to do her best to make the 
 rooms tidy. She was a good girl enough, but she had no 
 experience as a housemaid : it would never enter her head 
 to lay the bedroom fires ready for lighting, or to replenish 
 the empty match-boxes. Those chance words that dropped 
 from Dexter would, no doubt, exactly describe the state of 
 his room when he returned to Gleninch, with the prisoner 
 and his mother, from Edinburgh. That he tore up the mys- 
 terious letter in his bedroom, and (finding no means immedi- 
 ately at hand for burning it) that he threw the fragments into 
 the empty grate, or into the waste-paper basket, seems-to be 
 the most reasonable conclusion that we can draw from what 
 we know. In any case, he would not have much time to 
 think about it. Every thing was done in a hurry on that 
 day. Eustace and his mother, accompanied by Dexter, left 
 for England the same evening by the night train. I myself 
 locked up the house, and gave the keys to the lodge-keeper. 
 It was understood that he was to look after the preservation 
 of the reception-rooms on the ground-floor; and that his wife 
 and daughter were to perform the same service between 
 them in the rooms up -stairs. On receiving your letter, I 
 drove at once to Gleninch to question the old woman on the 
 subject of the bedrooms, and of Dexter's room especially. 
 She remembered the time when the house was shut up by 
 associating it with the time when she was confined to her 
 bed by an attack of sciatica. She had not crossed the lodge 
 door, she was sure, for at least a week (if not' longer) after 
 Gleninch had been left in charge of her husband and herself. 
 Whatever was done in the way of keeping the bedrooms 
 aired and tidy during her illness was done by her daughter. 
 She, and she only, must have disposed of any letter which 
 might have been lying about in Dexter's room. Not a ves- 
 tige of torn paper, as I can myself certify, is to be discovered 
 in any part of the room now. Where did the girl find the 
 fragments of the letter? and what did she do with them? 
 Those arc the questions (if you approve of it) which we must 
 send three thousand miles away to ask for this sufficient 
 reason, that the lodge-keeper's daughter was married more 
 than a year since, and that she is settled with her husband in 
 business at New York. It rests with you to decide what is
 
 312 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 to be done. Don't let me mislead you with false hopes ! 
 Don't let me tempt you to throw away your money ! Even 
 if this woman does remember what she did with the torn 
 paper, the chances, at this distance of time, are enormously 
 against our ever recovering a single morsel of it. Be in no 
 haste to decide. I have my work to do in the city I can 
 give you the whole day to think it over." 
 
 "Send the man to New York by the next steamer,"! said. 
 " There is my decision, Mr. Playmore, without keeping you 
 waiting for it !" 
 
 He shook his head, in grave disapproval of my impetuosity. 
 In my former interview with him we had never once touched 
 on tire question of money. I was now, for the first time, to 
 make acquaintance with Mr. Playmore on the purely Scotch 
 side of his character. 
 
 "Why, you don't even know what it will cost you!" he 
 exclaimed, taking out his pocket-book with the air of a man 
 who was equally startled and scandalized. "Wait till I tot 
 it up," he said, " in English and American money." 
 
 "I can't wait! I want to make more discoveries!" 
 
 He took no notice of my interruption ; he went on impene- 
 trably with his calculations. 
 
 "The man will go second-class, and will take a return- 
 ticket. Very well. His ticket includes his food ; and (be- 
 ing, thank God, a teetotaler) he won't waste your money in 
 buying liquor on board. Arrived at New York, he will go 
 to a cheap German house, where he will, as I am credibly in- 
 formed, be boarded and lodged at the rate " 
 
 By this time (my patience being completely worn out) I 
 had taken my check-book from the table-drawer, had signed 
 my name, and had handed the blank check across the table 
 to my legal adviser. 
 
 "Fill it in with whatever the man wants," I said. "And 
 for Heaven's sake let us get back to Dexter !" 
 
 Mr. Playmore fell back in his chair, and lifted his hands and 
 eyes to the ceiling. I was not in the least impressed by that 
 solemn appeal to the unseen powers of arithmetic and money. 
 I insisted positively on being fed with more information. 
 
 "Listen to this," I went on, reading from Benjamin's notes. 
 "What did Dexter mean when he said, ' Number Nine, Cal- 
 dershaws. Ask for Dandie. You sha'n't have the Diary. A 
 secret in your ear. The Diary will hang him ?' How came
 
 THE LAW -AND THE LAKY. 313 
 
 Dexter to know Avhat vas in my husband's Diary? And 
 what does he mean by ' Number Nine, Caldcrshaws,' and the 
 rest of it ? Facts again ?" 
 
 "Facts again !" Mr. Play more answered, " muddled up to- 
 gether, as you may say but positive facts for all that. 
 Caldershaws, you must know, is one of the most disreputa- 
 ble districts in Edinburgh. One of my clerks (whom I am 
 in the habit of employing confidentially) volunteered to in- 
 quire for ' Dandie ' at ' Number Nine.' It was a ticklish busi- 
 ness in every way ; and my man wisely took a person with 
 him who was known in the neighborhood. 'Number Nine' 
 turned out to be (ostensibly) a shop for the sale of rags and 
 old iron ; and ' Dandie ' was suspected of trading now and 
 then, additionally, as a receiver of stolen goods. Thanks to 
 the influence of his companion, backed by a bank-note (which 
 can be repaid, by the way, out of the fund for the American 
 expenses), my clerk succeeded in making the fellow speak. 
 Not to trouble you with needless details, the result in sub- 
 stance was this : A fortnight or more before the date of 
 Mrs. Eustace's death, 'Dandie' made two keys from wax 
 models supplied to him by a new customer. The mystery 
 observed in the matter by the agent who managed it ex- 
 cited Dandie's distrust. He had the man privately watched 
 before he delivered the keys ; and he ended in discovering 
 that his customer Avas Miserrimus Dexter. "Wait a little ! 
 I have not done yet. Add to this information Dexter's in- 
 comprehensible knowledge of the contents of your husband's 
 Diary, and the product is that the wax models sent to the 
 old-iron shop in Caldershaws were models taken by theft 
 from the key of the Diary and the key of the table-drawer 
 in which it was kept. I have my own idea of the revelations 
 that are still to come if this matter is properly followed up. 
 Never mind going into that at present. Dexter (I tell you 
 again) is answerable for the late Mrs. Eustace's death. IIolo 
 he is answerable I believe you are in a fair way of finding 
 out. And, more than that, I say now, what I could not vent- 
 tire to say before it is a duty toward Justice, as well as a 
 duty toward your husband, to bring the truth to light. As 
 for the difficulties to be encountered, I don't think they need 
 daunt you. The greatest difficulties give way in the end, 
 when they are attacked by the united alliance of patiem-c, 
 resolution and economy."
 
 314 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 With a strong emphasis on the last words, my worthy ad- 
 viser, mindful of the flight of time and the claims of busi- 
 ness, rose to take his leave. 
 
 " One word more," I said, as he held out his hand. " Can 
 you manage to see Miserrimus Dexter before you go back to 
 Edinburgh ? From what the gardener told me, his brother 
 must be with him by this time. It would be a relief to me 
 to hear the latest news of him, and to hear it from you." 
 
 " It is part of my business in London to see him," said Mr. 
 Playmore. " But mind ! I have no hope of his recovery ; 
 I only wish to satisfy myself that his brother is able and 
 willing to take care of him. So far as ice are concerned, 
 Mrs. Eustace, that unhappy man has said his last words." 
 
 He opened the door stopped considered and came 
 back to me. 
 
 " With regard to that matter of sending the agent to Amer- 
 ica," he resumed " I propose to have the honor of submit- 
 ting to you a brief abstract " 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Playmore!" 
 
 "A brief abstract in writing, Mrs. Eustace, of the esti- 
 mated expenses of the whole pi'oceeding. You will be good 
 enough maturely to consider the same, making any remarks 
 on it, tending to economy, which may suggest themselves to 
 your mind at the time. And you will further oblige me, if 
 you approve of the abstract, by yourself filling in the blank" 
 space 011 your check with the needful amount in words and 
 figures. No, madam ! I really can not justify it to my con- 
 science to carry about my person any such loose and reckless 
 document as a blank check. There's a total disregard of 
 the first claims of prudence and economy implied in this 
 small slip of paper which is nothing less than a flat contra- 
 diction of the principles that have governed my whole life. 
 I can't submit to flat contradiction. Good -morning, Mrs. 
 Eustace good-morning." 
 
 He laid my check on the table with a low bow, and left 
 me. Among the curious developments of human stupidity 
 which occasionally present themselves to view, surely the 
 least excusable is the stupidity which, to this day, persists 
 in wondering why the Scotch succeed so well in life !
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 315 
 
 CHAPTER XLIL 
 
 MOKE SURPRISES. 
 
 THE same evening I received my " abstract" by the hands 
 of a clerk. 
 
 It was an intensely characteristic document. My ex- 
 penses were remorselessly calculated downward to shillings 
 and even to pence; and our unfortunate messenger's instruc- 
 tions in respect to his expenditure were reduced to a nicety 
 which must have made his life in America nothing less than 
 a burden to him. In mercy to the man, I took the liberty, 
 when I wrote back to Mr. Play more, of slightly increasing 
 the indicated amount of the figures which were to appear on 
 the check. I ought to have better known the correspond- 
 ent whom I had to deal with. Mr. Playmore's reply (inform- 
 ing me that our emissary had started on his voyage) re- 
 turned a receipt in due form, and the whole of the surplus 
 money, to the last farthing ! 
 
 A few hurried lines accompanied the " abstract," and 
 stated the result of the lawyer's visit to Miserrimus Dexter. 
 
 There was no change for the better there was no change 
 at all. Mr. Dexter, the brother, had arrived at the house ac- 
 companied by a medical man accustomed to the charge of 
 the insane. The new doctor declined to give any definite 
 opinion on the case until he had studied it carefully with 
 plenty of time at his disposal. It had been accordingly ar- 
 ranged that he should remove Miserrimus Dexter to the asy- 
 lum of which he was the proprietor as soon as the prepara- 
 tions for receiving the patient could be completed. The one 
 difficulty that still remained to be met related to the dis- 
 posal of the faithful creature who had never left her master, 
 night or day, since the catastrophe had happened. Ariel 
 had no friends and no money. The proprietor of the asylum 
 could not be expected to receive her without the customary 
 payment ; and Mr. Dexter' s brother " regretted to say that 
 he was not rich enough to find the money." A forcible sep- 
 aration from the one human being whom she loved, and a re- 
 moval in the character of a pauper to a public asylum such
 
 316 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 was the prospect which awaited the unfortunate creature 
 unless some one interfered in her favor before the end of the 
 week. 
 
 Under these sad circumstances, good Mr. Playmore pass- 
 ing over the claims of economy in favor of the claims of hu- 
 manity suggested that we should privately start a sub- 
 scription, and offered to head the list liberally himself. 
 
 I must have written all these pages to very little pur- 
 pose if it is necessary for me to add that I instantly sent a 
 letter to Mr. Dexter, the brother, undertaking to be answer- 
 able for whatever money was to be required while the sub- 
 scriptions were being collected, and only stipulating that 
 when Miserrimus Dexter was removed to the asylum, Ariel 
 should accompany him. This was readily conceded. But 
 serious objections were raised when I further requested that 
 she might be permitted to attend on her master in the asy- 
 lum as she had attended on him in the house. The rules of 
 the establishment forbade it, and the universal practice in 
 such cases forbade it, and so on, and so on. However, by 
 dint of perseverance and persuasion, I so far carried my point 
 as to gain a reasonable concession. During certain hours in 
 the day, and under certain wise restrictions, Ariel was to be 
 allowed the privilege of waiting on the Master in his room, 
 as well as of accompanying him when he was brought out 
 in his chair to take the air in the garden. For the honor 
 of humanity, let me add that the liability which I had un- 
 dertaken made no very serious demands on my resources. 
 Placed in Benjamin's charge, our subscription-list prospered. 
 Friends, and even strangers sometimes, opened their hearts 
 and their purses when they heard Ariel's melancholy story. 
 
 The day which followed the day of Mr. Playmore's visit 
 brought me news from Spain, in a letter from my mother-in- 
 law. To describe what I felt when I broke the seal and 
 read the first lines is simply impossible. Let Mrs. Macallan 
 be heard on this occasion in my place. 
 
 Thus she wrote : 
 
 " Prepare yourself, my dearest Valeria, for a delightful 
 surprise. Eustace has justified my confidence in him. When 
 he' returns to England, he returns if you will let him to 
 his wife.
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 317 
 
 "This resolution, let me hasten to assure you, has not 
 been brought about by any persuasions of mine. It is the 
 natural outgrowth of your husband's gratitude and your 
 husband's love. The first words he said to me, when he was 
 able to speak, were these : ' If I live to return to England, 
 and if I go to Valeria, do you think she will forgive me?' 
 AVe can only leave it to you, my dear, to give the answer. 
 If you love us, answer us by return of post. 
 
 " Having now told you what he said when I first informed 
 him that you had been his nurse and remember, if it seem 
 very little, that he is still too weak to speak except with 
 difficulty I shall purposely keep my letter back for a few 
 days. My object is to give him time to think, and to frank- 
 ly tell you of it if the interval produce any change in his 
 resolution. 
 
 "Three days have passed, and there is no change. He has 
 but one feeling now he longs for the day which is to unite 
 him again to his wife. 
 
 "But there is something else connected with Eustace that 
 you ought to know, and that I ought to tell you. 
 
 "Greatly as time and suffering have altered him in many 
 respects, there is no change, Valeria, in the aversion the 
 horror I may even say with which he views your idea of 
 inquiring anew into the circumstances which attended the 
 lamentable death of his first wife. It makes no difference 
 to him that you are only animated by a desire to serve 
 his interests. * Has she given up that idea? Are you posi- 
 tively sure she has given up that idea ?' Over and over 
 again he has put these questions to me. I have answered 
 what else could I do in the miserably feeble state in which 
 lie still lies? I have answered in such a manner as to 
 soothe and satisfy him. I have said, 'Relieve your mind of 
 all anxiety on that subject : Valeria has no choice but to 
 give up the idea ; the obstacles in her way have proved to 
 be insurmountable the obstacles have conquered her.' This, 
 if you remember, was what I really believed would happen 
 when you and I spoke of that painful topic ; and I have 
 heard nothing from you since which has tended to shake my 
 opinion in the smallest degree. If I am right (as I pray God 
 I may be) in the view that I take, you have only to confirm 
 me in your reply, and all will be well. In the other event 
 that is to say, if you are still determined to persevere in
 
 318 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 .your hopeless project then make up your mind to face the 
 result. Set Eustace's prejudices at defiance in this particu- 
 lar, and you lose your hold on his gratitude, his penitence, 
 and his love you will, in my belief, never see him again. 
 
 " I express myself strongly, in your own interests, my dear, 
 and for your own sake. When you reply, write a few lines 
 to Eustace, inclosed in your letter to me. 
 
 "As for the date of our departure, it is still impossible for 
 me to give you any definite information. Eustace recovers 
 very slowly; the doctor has not yet allowed him to leave his 
 bed ; and when we do travel we must journey by easy 
 stages. It will be at least six weeks, at the earliest, before 
 we can hope to be back again in dear Old England. 
 " Affectionately yours, 
 
 " CATHERINE MACALLAN." 
 
 I laid down the letter, and did my best (vainly enough for 
 some time) to compose my spirits. To understand the posi- 
 tion in which I now found myself, it is only necessary to re- 
 member one circumstance : the messenger to whom we had 
 committed our inquiries was at that moment crossing the 
 Atlantic on his way to New York. 
 
 What was to be done ? 
 
 I hesitated. Shocking as it may seem to some people, I 
 hesitated. There was really no need to hurry my decision. 
 I had the whole day before me. 
 
 I went out and took a wretched, lonely walk, and turned 
 the matter over in my mind. I came home again, and turned 
 the matter over once more by the fireside. To offend and 
 repel my darling when ho was returning to me, penitently 
 returning of his own free will, was what no woman in my 
 position, and feeling as I did, could under any earthly cir- 
 cumstances have brought herself to do. And yet, on the 
 other hand, how in Heaven's name could I give up my grand 
 enterprise at the very time when even wise and prudent Mr. 
 Playmore saw such a prospect of succeeding in it that he had 
 actually volunteered to help me ? Placed between those two 
 cruel alternatives, which could I choose ? Think of your 
 own frailties, and have some mercy on mine. I turned my 
 back on both the alternatives. Those two agreeable fiends, 
 Prevarication and Deceit, took me, as it were, softly by the 
 hand : " Don't commit yourself either way, my dear," they
 
 THE LAW AXD THE LADY. 319 
 
 saul, in their most persuasive manner. " Write just enough 
 to compose your mother-in-law and to satisfy your husband. 
 You liave got time before you. Wait and see if Time doesn't 
 stand your friend, and get you out of the difficulty." 
 
 Infamous advice ! And yet I took it I, who had been 
 well brought up, and who ought to have known better. You 
 who read this shameful confession would have known better, 
 I am sure. You are not included, in the Prayer-book cate- 
 gory, among the " miserable sinners." 
 
 Well ! well ! let me have virtue enough to tell the truth. 
 In writing to my mother-in-law, I informed her that it had 
 been found necessary to remove Miserrimus Dexter to an 
 asylum and I left her to draw her own conclusions from 
 that fact, unenlightened by so much as one word of addition- 
 al information. In the same way, I told my husband a part 
 of the truth, and no more. I said I forgave him with all my 
 heart and I did ! I said he had only to come to me, and I 
 would receive him with open arms and so I would ! As 
 for the rest, let me say with Hamlet" The rest is silence." 
 
 Having dispatched my unworthy letters, I found myself 
 growing restless, and feeling the want of a change. It would 
 be necessary to wait at least eight or nine days before we 
 could hope to hear by telegraph from New York. I bade 
 farewell for a time to my dear and admirable Benjamin, and 
 betook myself to my old home in the North, at the vicarage 
 of my uncle Starkweather. My journey to Spain to nurse 
 Eustace had made my peace with my worthy relatives ; we 
 had exchanged friendly letters ; and I had promised to be 
 their guest as soon as it was possible for me to leave London. 
 
 I passed a quiet and (all things considered) a happy time 
 among the old scenes. I visited once more the bank by the 
 river-side, where Eustace and I had first met. I walked 
 again on the lawn and loitered through the shrubbery those 
 favorite haunts in which we had so often talked over our 
 troubles, and so often forgotten them in a kiss. How sadly 
 and strangely had our lives been parted since that time ! 
 How uncertain still was the fortune which the future had in 
 store for us ! 
 
 The associations amid which I was now living had their 
 softening effect on my heart, their elevating influence over 
 my mind. I reproached myself, bitterly reproached myself, 
 for not having written more fully and frankly to Eustace.
 
 320 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 Why had I hesitated to sacrifice to him my hopes and my 
 interests in the coming investigation ? He had not hesitated, 
 poor fellow his first thought was the thought of his wife ! 
 
 I had passed a fortnight with my uncle and aunt before I 
 heard again from Mr. Playmore. When a letter from him 
 arrived at last, it disappointed me indescribably. A tele- 
 gram from our messenger informed us that the lodge-keeper's 
 daughter and her husband had left New York, and that ho 
 was still in search of a trace of them. 
 
 There was nothing to be done but to wait as patiently as 
 we could, on the chance of hearing better news. I remained 
 in the North, by Mr. Playmore's advice, so as to be within 
 an easy journey to Edinburgh in case it might be necessary 
 for me to consult him personally. Three more weeks of 
 weary expectation passed before a second letter reached me. 
 This time it was impossible to say whether the news were 
 good or bad. It might have been either it was simply be- 
 wildering. Even Mr. Playmore himself was taken by sur- 
 prise. These were the last wonderful words limited of 
 course by considerations of economy which reached us (by 
 telegram) from our agent in America : 
 
 " Open the dust-heap at Gleuinch." 
 
 CHAPTER XLIII. 
 
 AT LAST! 
 
 MY letter from Mr. Playmore, inclosing the agent's extraor- 
 dinary telegram, was not inspired by the sanguine view of 
 our prospects which he had expressed to me when we met at 
 Benjamin's house. 
 
 " If the telegram mean any thing," he wrote, " it means 
 that the fragments of the torn letter have been cast into the 
 housemaid's bucket (along with the dust, the ashes, and the 
 rest of the litter in the room), and have been emptied on the 
 dust-heap at Gleninch. Since this was done, the accumulated 
 refuse collected from the periodical cleansings of the house, 
 during a term of neai'ly 'three years including, of course, 
 the ashes from the fires kept burning, for the greater part of 
 the year, in the library and the picture-gallery have been 
 poured upon the heap, and have buried the precious morsels
 
 THE LAW AND TIIE LADY. 321 
 
 of paper deeper and deeper, day by day. Even if we have a 
 fair chance of finding these fragments, what hope can we 
 feel, at this distance of time, of recovering them with the 
 writing iu a state of preservation? I shall be glad to hear, 
 by return of post if possible, how the matter strikes you. 
 If you could make it convenient to consult with me person- 
 ally in Edinburgh, we should save time, when time may be 
 of serious importance to us. While you are at Doctor Stark- 
 weather's you are within easy reach of this place. Please 
 think of it." 
 
 I thought of it seriously enough. The foremost question 
 which I had to consider was the question of my husband. 
 
 The departure of the mother and son from Spain had been 
 so long delayed, by the surgeon's orders, that the travelers 
 had only advanced on their homeward journey as far as Bor- 
 deaux, when I had last heard from, Mrs. Macallan three or 
 four days since. Allowing for an interval of repose at Bor- 
 deaux, and for the slow rate at which they would be com- 
 pelled to move afterward, I might still expect them to arrive 
 in England some time before a letter from the agent in Amer- 
 ica could reach Mr. Play more. How, in this position of affairs, 
 I could contrive to join the lawyer in Edinburgh, after meet- 
 ing my husband in London, it was not easy to see. The wise 
 and the right way, as I thought, was to tell Mr. Playmora 
 frankly that I was not mistress of my own movements, and 
 that he had better address his next letter to me at Benjamin's 
 house. 
 
 Writing to my legal adviser in this sense, I had a word 
 of my own to add on the subject of the torn letter. 
 
 In the last years of my father's life I had traveled with 
 him in Italy, and I had seen in the .Muse'urn at Xaples the 
 wonderful relics of a by-gone time discovered among the ruins 
 of Pompeii. By way of encouraging Mr. Playmore, I now 
 reminded him that the eruption which had overwhelmed the 
 town had preserved, for more than sixteen hundred years, 
 such perishable things as the straw in which pottery had 
 been packed ; the paintings on house walls ; the dresses 
 worn by the inhabitants ; and (most noticeable of all, in our 
 case) a piece of ancient paper, still attached to the volcanic 
 ashes which had fallen over it. If these discoveries had 
 been made after a lapse of sixteen centuries, under a layer 
 of dust and ashes on a large scale, surely we might hope to
 
 322 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 meet with similar cases of preservation, after a lapse of three 
 or four years only, under a layer of dust and ashes on a small 
 scale. Taking for granted (what was perhaps doubtful 
 enough) that the fragments of the letter could be recovered, 
 ray own conviction was that the writing on them, though it 
 mio-ht be faded, would certainly still be legible. The very 
 accumulations which Mr. Playraore deplored would be the 
 means of preserving them from the rain and the damp. With 
 these modest hints I closed ray letter; and thus for once, 
 thanks to my Continental experience, I was able to instruct 
 my lawyer ! 
 
 Another day passed ; and I heard nothing of the travelers. 
 
 I began to feel anxious. I made my preparations for ray 
 journey southward overnight ; and I resolved to start for 
 London the next day unless I heard of some change in Mrs. 
 Macallan's traveling arrangements in the interval. 
 
 The post of the next morning decided my course of action. 
 It brought me a letter from my mother-in-law, which added 
 one more to the memorable dates in my domestic calendar. 
 
 Eustace and his mother had advanced as far as Paris on 
 their homeward journey, when a cruel disaster had befallen 
 them. The fatigues of traveling, and the excitement of his 
 anticipated meeting with me, had proved together to be too 
 much for my husband. He had held out as far as Paris with 
 the greatest difficulty ; and he was now confined to his bed 
 again, struck down by a relapse. The doctors, this time, had 
 no fear for his life, provided that his patience would support 
 him through a lengthened period of the most absolute repose. 
 
 " It now rests with you, Valeria," Mrs. Macallan wrote, " to 
 fortify and comfort Eustace under this new calamity. Do 
 not suppose that .he has ever blamed or thought of blaming 
 you for leaving him with me in Spain, as soon as he was de- 
 clared to be out of danger. ' It was I who left fier? he said 
 to me, when we first talked about it ; ' and it is my wife's 
 right to expect that I should go back to her.' Those were 
 his words, my dear ; and he has done all he can to abide by 
 them. Helpless in his bed, he now asks you to take the will 
 for the deed, and to join him in Paris. I think I know you 
 well enough, my child, to be sure that you will do this ; and 
 I need only add one word of caution, before I close my let- 
 ter. Avoid all reference, not only to the Trial (you will do 
 that of your own accord), but even to our house at Gleninch.
 
 TUE LAW AND THE LADY. 323 
 
 You will understand how lie feels, iu his present state of 
 nervous depression, when I tell you that I should never have 
 ventured on asking you to join him here, if your letter had 
 not informed me that your visits to Dexter were at an end. 
 Would you believe it ? his horror of any thing which recalls 
 our past troubles is still so vivid that he has actually asked 
 me to give my consent to selling Gleninch !" 
 
 So Eustace's mother wrote of him. But she had not trust- 
 ed entirely to her own powers of persuasion. A slip of paper 
 was inclosed in her letter, containing these two lines, traced 
 in pencil oh, so feebly and so wearily ! by my poor darling 
 himself: 
 
 " I am too weak to travel any farther, Valeria. Will you 
 come to me and forgive me ?" A few pencil-marks followed ; 
 but they were illegible. The writing of those two short sen- 
 tences had exhausted him. 
 
 It is not saying much for myself, I know but, having con- 
 fessed it when I was wrong, let me at least record it when I 
 did what was right I decided instantly on giving up all 
 further connection with the recovery of the torn letter. If 
 Eustace asked me the question, I was resolved to be able to 
 answer truly: "I have made the sacrifice that assures your 
 tranquillity. When resignation was hardest, I have humbled 
 my obstinate spirit, and I have given way for my husband's 
 sake." 
 
 There was half an hour to spare before I left the vicarage 
 for the railway station. In that interval I wrote again to 
 Mr. Playmore, telling him plainly what my position was, 
 and withdrawing, at once and forever, from all share in in- 
 vestigating the mystery which lay hidden under the dust- 
 heap at Gleninch. 
 
 CHAPTER XLIV. 
 
 OUR NEW HONEYMOON. 
 
 IT is not to be disguised or denied that my spirits were 
 depressed on my journey to London. 
 
 To resign the one cherished purpose of my life, when I had 
 suffered so much in pursuing it, and when I had (to all ap- 
 pearance) so nearly reached the realization of my hopes, was
 
 324 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 putting to a hard trial a woman's fortitude and a woman's 
 sense of duty. Still, even if the opportunity had been of- 
 fered to me, I would not have recalled my letter to Mr. Play- 
 more. " It is done, and well done," I said to myself; " and 
 I have only to wait a day to be reconciled to it when I give 
 my husband my first kiss." 
 
 I had planned and hoped to reach London in time to start 
 for Paris by the night-mail. But the train was twice de- 
 layed on the long journey from the North ; and there was 
 no help for it but to sleep at Benjamin's villa, and to defer 
 my departure until the morning. 
 
 It was, of course, impossible for me to warn my old friend 
 of the change in my plans. My arrival took him by sur- 
 prise. I found him alone in his library, with a wonderful il- 
 lumination of lamps and candles, absorbed over some mor- 
 sels of torn paper scattered on the table before him. 
 
 " What in the world are you about ?" I asked. 
 
 Benjamin blushed I was going to say, like a young girl ; 
 but young girls have given up blushing in these latter days 
 of the age we live in. 
 
 " Oh, nothing, nothing !" he said, confusedly. "Don't no- 
 tice it." 
 
 He stretched out his hand to brush the morsels of paper 
 off the table. Those morsels raised a sudden suspicion in 
 my mind. I stopped him. 
 
 " You have heard from Mr. Play more !" I said. " Tell me 
 the truth, Benjamin. Yes or No?" 
 
 Benjamin blushed a shade deeper, and answered " Yes." 
 
 " Where is the letter ?" 
 
 "I mustn't show it to you, Valeria." 
 
 This (need I say it ?) made me determined to see the letter. 
 My best w r ay of persuading Benjamin to show it to me was 
 to tell him of the sacrifice that I had made to my husband's 
 wishes. " I have no further voice in the matter," I added, 
 when I had done. "It now rests entirely with Mr. Play- 
 more to go on or to give up ; and this is my last opportunity 
 of discovering what he really thinks about it. Don't I de- 
 serve some little indulgence ? Have I no claim to look at 
 the letter ?" 
 
 Benjamin was too much surprised, and too much pleased 
 with me, when he heard what had happened, to be able to 
 resist my entreaties. He gave me the letter.
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 325 
 
 Mr. Playmore wrote to appeal confidentially to Benjamin 
 as a commercial man. In the long course of his occupation 
 in business, it was just possible that he might have heard 
 of cases in which documents have been put together again 
 after having been torn up by design or by accident. Even if 
 his experience failed in this particular, he might be able to 
 refer to some authority in London who would be capable of 
 giving an opinion on the subject. By way of explaining his 
 strange request, Mr. Playmore reverted to the notes which 
 Benjamin had taken at Miserrimus Dexter's house, and in- 
 formed him of the serious importance of "the gibberish" 
 which he had reported under protest. The letter closed by 
 recommending that any correspondence which ensued should 
 be kept a secret from me on the ground that it might excite 
 false hopes in my mind if I were informed of it. 
 
 I now understood the tone which my worthy adviser had 
 adopted in writing to me. His interest in the recovery of 
 the letter was evidently so overpowering that common pru- 
 dence compelled him to conceal it from me, in case of ulti- 
 mate failure. This did not look as if Mr. Playmore was like- 
 ly to give up the investigation on my withdrawal from it. 
 I glanced again at the fragments of paper on Benjamin's 
 table, with an interest in them which I had not felt yet. 
 
 " Has any thing been found at Gleninch ?" I asked. 
 
 " No," said Benjamin. " I have only been trying experi- 
 ments with a letter of my own, before I wrote to Mr. Play- 
 more." 
 
 " Oh, you have torn up the letter yourself, then ?" 
 
 " Yes. And, to make it all the more difficult to put them 
 together again, I shook up the pieces in a basket. It's a 
 childish thing to do, my dear, at my age " 
 
 He stopped, looking very much ashamed of himself. 
 
 "Well," I went on ; "and have you succeeded in putting 
 your letter together again ?" 
 
 "It's not very easy, Valeria. But I have made a begin- 
 ning. It's the same principle as the principle in the 'Puz- 
 zles ' which we used to put together Avhen I was a boy. 
 Only get one central bit of it right, and the rest of the Puz- 
 zle falls into its place in a longer or a shorter time. Please 
 don't tell any body, my dear. People might say I was in 
 my dotage. To think of that gibberish in my note - book 
 having a meaning in it, after all ! I only got Mr. Playmore's 
 P
 
 326 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 letter this morning; and I am really almost ashamed to 
 mention it I have been trying experiments on torn letters, 
 off and on, ever since. You wofl't tell upon me, will you ?" 
 
 I answered the dear old man by a hearty embrace. Now 
 that he had lost his steady moral balance, and had caught 
 the infection of my enthusiasm,! loved him better than ever. 
 
 But I was not quite happy, though I tried to appear so. 
 Struggle against it as I might, I felt a little mortified when 
 I remembered that I had resigned all further connection with 
 the search for the letter at such a time as this. My one com- 
 fort was to think of Eustace. My one encouragement was 
 to keep my mind fixed as constantly as possible on the bright 
 change for the better that now appeared in the domestic pros- 
 pect. Here, at least, there was no disaster to fear ; here I 
 could honestly feel that I had triumphed. My husband had 
 come back to me of his own free will ; he had not given way, 
 under the hard weight of evidence he had yielded to the no- 
 bler influences of his gratitude and his love. And I had taken 
 him to my heart again not because I had made discoveries 
 which left him no other alternative than to live with me,but 
 because I believed in the better mind that had come to him, 
 and loved and trusted him without reserve. Was it not 
 worth some sacrifice to have arrived at this result ! True 
 most true ! And yet I was a little out of spirits. Ah, well ! 
 well ! the remedy was within a day's journey. The sooner I 
 was with Eustace the better. 
 
 Early the next morning I left London for Paris by the 
 tidal-train. Benjamin accompanied me to the Terminus. 
 
 " I shall write to Edinburgh by to-day's post," he said, in 
 the interval before the train moved out of the station. " I 
 think I can find the man Mr. Playmore wants to help him, if 
 he decides to go on. Have you any message to send,Valeria ?" 
 
 " No. I have done with it, Benjamin ; I have nothing 
 more to say." 
 
 "Shall I write and tell you how it ends, if Mr. Playmore 
 does really try the experiment at Gleninch?" 
 
 I answered, as I felt, a little bitterly. 
 
 "Yes," I said. "Write and tell me if the experiment 
 fail." 
 
 My old friend smiled. He knew me better than I knew 
 myself.
 
 THE LAW AXI> THE LADY. 327 
 
 "All right!" he said, resignedly. "I have got the address 
 of your banker's correspondent in Paris. You will have to 
 go there for money, in y dear; and you may find a letter 
 waiting for you in the office when you least expect it. Let 
 me hear how your husband goes on. Good-by and God 
 bless you !" 
 
 That evening I was restored to Eustace. 
 
 He was too weak, poor fellow, even to raise his head from 
 the pillow. I knelt down at the bedside and kissed him. 
 His languid, weary eyes kindled with a new life as my lips 
 touched his. " I must try to live now," he whispered, " for 
 your sake." 
 
 .My mother-in-law had delicately left us together. When 
 he said those words the temptation to tell him of the new 
 hope that had come to brighten our lives was more than I 
 could resist. 
 
 "You must try to live now, Eustace," I said, "for some 
 one else besides me." 
 
 His eyes looked wonderingly into mine. 
 
 " Do you mean my mother ?" he asked. 
 
 I laid my head on his bosom, and whispered back 
 
 " I mean your child." 
 
 I had all my reward for all that I had given up. I forgot 
 Mr. Playmore ; I forgot Gleninch. Our new honeymoon dates, 
 in my remembrance, from that day. 
 
 The quiet time passed, in the by-street in which we lived. 
 The outer stir and tumult of Parisian life raji its daily course 
 around us, unnoticed and unheard. Steadily, though slow- 
 ly, Eustace gained strength. The doctors, with a word or 
 two of caution, left him almost entirely to me. " You are 
 his physician," they said ; " the happier you make him, the 
 sooner he will recover." The quiet, monotonous round of my 
 new life was far from wearying me. I, too, wanted repose 
 I had no interests, no pleasures, out of my husband's room. 
 
 Once, and once only, the placid surface of our lives was 
 just gently ruffled by an allusion to the past. Something 
 that I accidentally said reminded Eustace of our last interview 
 at Major Fitz-David's house. He referred, very delicately, 
 to what I had then said of the Verdict pronounced on him at 
 the Trial ; and he left me to infer that a word from my lips, 
 confirming what his mother had already told him, would 
 quiet his mind at once and forever.
 
 328 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 My answer involved no embarrassments or difficulties ; I 
 could and did honestly tell him that I had made his wishes 
 my law. But it was hardly in womanhood, I am afraid, to 
 be satisfied with merely replying, and to leave it there. I 
 thought it due to me that Eustace too should concede some- 
 thing, in the way of an assurance which might quiet ray mind. 
 As usual with me, the words followed the impulse to speak 
 them. " Eustace," I asked, " are you quite cured of those 
 cruel doubts which once made you leave me?" 
 
 His answer (as he afterward said) made me blush with 
 pleasure. "Ah, Valeria, I should never have gone away if 
 I had known you then as well as I know you now !" 
 
 So the last shadows of distrust melted away out of our 
 lives. 
 
 The very remembrance of the turmoil and the trouble of 
 my past days in London seemed now to fade from my mem- 
 ory. We were lovers again ; we were absorbed again in 
 each other; we could almost fancy that our marriage dated 
 back once more to a day or two since. But one last victory 
 over myself was wanting to make my happiness complete. 
 I still felt secret longings, in those dangerous moments when 
 I was left by myself, to know whether the search for the 
 torn letter had or had not taken place. What wayward 
 creatures we are ! With every thing that a woman could 
 want to make her happy, I was ready to put that happiness 
 in peril rather than remain ignorant of what was going on 
 at Gleninch ! I actually hailed the day when my empty 
 purse gave me an excuse for going to my banker's corre- 
 spondent on business, and so receiving any letters waiting for 
 me which might be placed in my hands. 
 
 I applied for my money without knowing what I was about; 
 wondering all the time whether Benjamin had written to me 
 or not. My eyes wandered over the desks and tables in the 
 office, looking for letters furtively. Nothing of the sort was 
 visible. But a man appeared from an inner office : an ugly 
 man, who was yet beautiful to my eyes, for this sufficient 
 reason he had a letter in his hand, and he said, " Is this for 
 you, ma'am ?" 
 
 A glance at the address showed me Benjamin's handwrit- 
 ing. 
 
 Had they tried the experiment of recovering the letter? 
 and had they failed ?
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 329 
 
 Somebody put my money in my bag, and politely led me 
 out to the little hired carriage which was waiting for rne at 
 the door. I remember nothing distinctly until I opened the 
 letter on my way home. The first words told me that the 
 dust-heap had been examined, and that the fragments of the 
 torn letter had been found. 
 
 CHAPTER XLV. 
 
 THE DUST-HEAP DISTURBED. 
 
 MY head turned giddy. I was obliged to wait and let 
 my overpowering agitation subside, before I could read any 
 more. 
 
 Looking at the letter again, after an interval, my eyes fell 
 accidentally on a sentence near the end, which surprised and 
 startled me. 
 
 I stopped the driver of the carriage, at the entrance to the 
 street in which our lodgings were situated, and told him to 
 take me to the beautiful park of Paris the famous Bois de 
 Boulogne. My object was to gain time enough, in this way, 
 to read the letter carefully through by myself, and to ascer- 
 tain whether I ought or ought not to keep the receipt of it 
 a secret before I confronted my husband and his mother at 
 home. 
 
 This precaution taken, I read the narrative which my good 
 Benjamin had so wisely and so thoughtfully written for me. 
 Treating the various incidents methodically, he began with 
 the Report which had arrived, in due course of mail, from our 
 agent in America. 
 
 Our man had successfully traced the lodge-keeper's daugh- 
 ter and her husband to a small town in one of the "Western 
 States. Mr. Playrnore's letter of introduction at once se- 
 cured him a cordial reception from the married pair, and a 
 patient hearing when he stated the object of his voyage 
 across the Atlantic. 
 
 His first questions led to no very encouraging results. The 
 woman was confused and surprised,'and was apparently quite 
 unable to exert her memory to any useful purpose. Fortu- 
 nately, her husband proved to be a very intelligent man. He 
 took the agent privately aside, and said to him, " I under-
 
 330 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 stand my wife, and you don't. Tell me exactly what it is 
 you want to know, and leave it to me to discover how much 
 she remembers and how much she forgets." 
 
 This sensible suggestion was readily accepted. The agent 
 waited for events a day and a night. 
 
 Early the next morning the husband said to him, " Talk to 
 my wife now, and you will find she has something to tell you. 
 Only mind this. Don't laugh at her when she speaks of 
 trifles. She is half ashamed to speak of trifles, even to me. 
 Thinks men are above such matters, you know. Listen 
 quietly, and let her talk and you will get at it all in that 
 way." 
 
 The agent followed his instructions, and "got at it" as 
 follows : 
 
 The woman remembered, perfectly well, being sent to clean 
 the bedrooms and put them tidy, after the gentlefolks had 
 all left Gleninch. Her mother had a bad hip at the time, 
 and could not go with her and help her. She did not much 
 fancy being alone in the great house, after what had happen- 
 ed in it. On her way to her work she passed two of the 
 cottagers' children in the neighborhood at play in the park. 
 Mi\ Macallan was always kind to his poor tenants, and never 
 objected to the young ones round about having a run on the 
 grass. The two children idly followed her to the house. She 
 took them inside, along with her not liking the place, as al- 
 ready mentioned, and feeling that they would be company 
 in the solitary rooms. 
 
 She began her work in the Guests' Corridor leaving the 
 room in the other corridor, in which the death had hap- 
 pened, to the last. 
 
 There was very little to do in the two first rooms. There 
 was not litter enough, when she had swept the floors and 
 cleaned the grates, to even half fill the housemaid's bucket 
 which she carried with her. The children followed her 
 about; and, ail things considered, were "very good com- 
 pany" in the lonely place. 
 
 The third room (that is to say, the bedchamber which had 
 been occupied by Miserrimus Dexter) was in a much worse 
 state than the other two, and wanted a great deal of tidying. 
 She did not much notice the children here, being occupied 
 with her work. The litter was swept up from the carpet, 
 and the cinders and ashes were taken out of the grate, and
 
 TI1E LAW AND THE LADY. 331 
 
 tlie whole of it was in the bucket, when her attention was 
 recalled to the children by hearing one of them cry. 
 
 She looked about the room without at first discovering 
 them. 
 
 A fresh outburst of crying led her in the right direction, 
 and showed her the children under a table in a corner of the 
 room. The youngest of the two had got into a waste-paper 
 basket. The eldest had found an old bottle of gum, with a 
 brush fixed in the cork, and was gravely painting the face of 
 the smaller child with what little remained of the contents 
 of the bottle. Some natural struggles, on the part of the 
 little creature, had ended in the overthrow of the basket, 
 and the usual outburst of crying had followed as a matter 
 of course. 
 
 In this state of things the remedy was soon applied. The 
 woman took the bottle away from the eldest child, and gave 
 it a " box on the ear." The younger one she set on its legs 
 again, and she put the two "in the corner" to keep them 
 quiet. This done, she swept up such fragments of the torn 
 paper in the basket as had fallen on the floor; threw them 
 back again into the basket, along with the gum-bottle ; fetch- 
 ed the bucket, and emptied the basket into it; and then pro- 
 ceeded to the fourth and last room in the corridor, where 
 she finished her work for that day. 
 
 Leaving the house, with the children after her, she took 
 the filled bucket to the dust-heap, and emptied it in a hollow 
 place among the rubbish, about half-way up the mound. 
 Then she took the children home ; and there was an end of 
 it for the day. 
 
 Such was the result of the appeal made to the woman's 
 memory of domestic events at Gleninch. 
 
 The conclusion at which Mr. Playmore arrived, from the 
 facts submitted to him, was that the chances were now de- 
 cidedly in favor of the recovery of the letter. Thrown in, 
 nearly midway between the contents of the housemaid's 
 bucket, the torn morsels would be protected above as well 
 as below, when they were emptied on the dust-heap. 
 
 Succeeding weeks and months would add to that protec- 
 tion, by adding to the accumulated refuse. In the neglect- 
 ed condition of the grounds, the dust-heap had not been dis- 
 turbed in search of manure. There it had stood, untouched, 
 from the time when the family left Gleninch to the present
 
 332 TIIE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 day. And there, hidden deep somewhere in the mound, the 
 fragments of the letter must be. 
 
 Such were the lawyer's conclusions. He had written im- 
 mediately to communicate them to Benjamin. And, there- 
 upon, what had Benjamin done? 
 
 After having tried his powers of reconstruction on his own 
 correspondence, the prospect of experimenting on the mys- 
 terious letter itself had proved to be a temptation too pow- 
 erful for the old man to resist. " I almost fancy, my dear, 
 this business of yours has bewitched me," he wrote. " You 
 see I have the misfortune to be an idle man. I have time to 
 spare and money to spare. And the end of it is that I am 
 here at Gleninch, engaged on my own sole responsibility 
 (with good Mr. Playmore's permission) in searching the dust- 
 heap !" 
 
 Benjamin's description of his first view of the field of 
 action at Gleninch followed these characteristic lines of 
 apology. 
 
 I passed over the description without ceremony. My re- 
 membrance of the scene was too vivid to require any prompt- 
 ing of that sort. I saw again, in the dim evening light, the 
 unsightly mound which had so strangely attracted my at- 
 tention at Gleninch. I heard again the words in which Mr. 
 Playmore had explained to me the custom of the dust-heap 
 in Scotch country-houses. What had Benjamin and Mr. 
 Playmore done ? What had Benjamin and Mr. Playmore 
 found? For me, the true interest of the narrative Vas there 
 and to that portion of it I eagerly turned next. 
 
 They had proceeded methodically, of course, with one eye 
 on the pounds, shillings, and pence, and the other on the ob- 
 ject in view. In Benjamin, the lawyer had found what he 
 had not met^with in me a sympathetic mind, alive to the 
 value of " an abstract of the expenses," and conscious of that 
 most remunerative of human yirtues, the virtue of economy. 
 
 At so much a week, they had engaged men to dig into the 
 mound and to sift the ashes. At so much a week, they had 
 hired a tent to shelter the open dust-heap from wind and 
 weather. At so much a week, they had engaged the serv- 
 ices of a young man (personally known to Benjamin), who 
 was empfbyed in a laboratory under a professor of chemis- 
 try, and who had distinguished himself by his skillful manip- 
 ulation of ..paper in a recent case of forgery on a well-known
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 33* 
 
 London firm. Armed with these preparations, they had begun 
 the work ; Benjamin and the young chemist living at Glen- 
 inch, and taking it in turns to superintend the proceedings. 
 
 Three days ot'labor with the spade and the sieve produced 
 no results of the slightest importance. However, the matter 
 was in the hands of two quietly determined men. They de- 
 clined to be discouraged. They went on. 
 
 On the fourth day the first morsels of paper were found. 
 
 Upon examination, they proved to be the fragments of a 
 tradesman's prospectus. Nothing dismayed, Benjamin and 
 the young chemist still persevered. At the end of the day's 
 work more pieces of paper were turned up. These proved 
 to be covered with written characters. Mr. Play more (arriv- 
 ing at Gleninch, as usual, every evening on the conclusion 
 of his labors in the law) was consulted as to the handwrit- 
 ing. After careful examination, he. declared that the muti- 
 lated portions of sentences submitted to him had been writ- 
 ten, beyond all doubt, by Eustace Macallan's first wife ! 
 
 This discovery aroused the enthusiasm of the searchers to 
 fever height. 
 
 Spades and sieves were from that moment forbidden uten- 
 sils. However unpleasant the task might be, hands alone 
 were used in the further examination of the mound. The 
 first and foremost necessity was to place the morsels of paper 
 (in flat card-board boxes prepared for the purpose) in their 
 order as they were found. Night came ; the laborers were 
 dismissed ; Benjamin and his two colleagues worked on by 
 lamp-light. The morsels of paper were now turned up by 
 dozens, instead of by ones and twos. For a while the search 
 prospered in this way ; and then the morsels appeared no 
 more. Had they all been recovered? or would renewed 
 hand-digging yield more yet? The next light layers of rub- 
 bish were carefully removed and the grand discovery of 
 the day followed. There (upside down) was the gum-bot- 
 tle which the lodge-keeper's daughter had spoken of. And, 
 more precious still, there, under it, were more fragments of 
 written paper, all stuck together in a little lump, by the last 
 drippings from the gurn-bottle dropping upon them as they 
 lay on the dust-heap ! 
 
 The scene now shifted to the interior of the house. "When 
 the searchers next assembled they met at the great table in 
 the library at Gleninch. 
 
 P2
 
 334 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 Benjamin's experience with the "Puzzles" which he had 
 put together in the days of his boyhood proved to be of some 
 use to his companions. The fragments accidentally stuck 
 together would, in all probability, be found to fit each other, 
 and would certainly (in any case) be the easiest fragments 
 to reconstruct as a centre to start from. 
 
 The delicate business of separating these pieces of paper, 
 and of preserving them in the order in which they had ad- 
 hered to each other, was assigned to the practiced fingers of 
 the chemist. But the difficulties of his task did not end here. 
 The writing was (as usual in letters) traced on both sides of 
 the paper, and it could only be preserved for the purpose of 
 reconstruction by splitting each morsel into two so as arti- 
 ficially to make a blank side, on which could be spread the 
 fine cement used for reuniting the fragments in their orig- 
 inal form. 
 
 To Mr. Playmore and Benjamin the prospect of success- 
 fully putting the letter together, under these disadvantages, 
 seemed to be almost hopeless. Their skilled colleague soon 
 satisfied them thaf, t!: were wrong. 
 
 He drew their attention cc the thickness of the paper 
 note-paper of the strongest and best quality on which 
 the writing was traced. It was of more than twice the sub- 
 stance of the last paper on which he had operated, when he 
 was engaged in the forgery case ; and it was, on that account, 
 comparatively easy for him (aided by the mechanical appli- 
 ances which he had brought from London) to split the mor- 
 sels of the torn paper, within a given space of time which 
 might permit them to begin the reconstruction of the letter 
 that night. 
 
 With these explanations, he quietly devoted himself to his 
 work. While Benjamin and the lawyer were still poring 
 over the scattered morsels of the letter which had been first 
 discovered, and trying to piece them together again, the 
 chemist had divided the greater part of the fragments spe- 
 cially confided to him into two halves each ; and had correct- 
 ly put together some five or six sentences of the letter on the 
 smooth sheet of cardboard prepared for that purpose. 
 
 They looked eagerly at the reconstructed writing so 
 far. 
 
 It was correctly done : the sense was perfect. The first 
 result gained by examination was remarkable enough to re-
 
 THE LAW AXI> THE LADY. 335 
 
 ward them for all their exertions. The language used plain- 
 ly identified the person to whom the late Mrs. Eustace had 
 addressed her letter. 
 
 That person was my husband. 
 
 And the letter thus addressed if the plainest circumstan- 
 tial evidence could be trusted was identical with the letter 
 which Miserrimus Dexter had suppressed until the Trial was 
 over, and had then destroyed by tearing it up. 
 
 These were the discoveries that had been made at the 
 time when Benjamin wrote to me. He had been on the 
 point of posting his letter, when Mr. Playmore had suggest- 
 ed that lie should keep it by him for a few days longer, ou 
 the chance of having more still to tell me. 
 
 " We are indebted to her for these results," the lawyer 
 had said. "But for her resolution, and her influence over 
 Miserrimus Dexter, we should never have discovered what 
 the dust-heap was hiding from us we should never have 
 seen so much as a glimmering of the truth. She has the first 
 claim to the fulle* ' utbnnation. Let her have it." 
 
 The letter had t.v.i accordiaffly * back for three days. 
 That interval being at an end,it was,, uned and 
 
 concluded in terms which indescribably alaYnied me. 
 
 "The chemist is advancing rapidly with his part of the 
 work" (Benjamin wrote) ; "and I have succeeded in putting 
 together a separate portion of the torn writing which makes 
 sense. Comparison of what he has accomplished with what 
 I have accomplished has led to startling conclusions. Un- 
 less Mr. Playmore and I are entirely wrong (and God grant 
 we may be so !), there is a serious necessity for your keeping 
 the reconstruction of the letter strictly secret from every 
 body about you. The disclosures suggested by what has 
 come to light are so heart-rending and so dreadful that I 
 can not bring myself to write about them until I am abso- 
 lutely obliged to do so. Please forgive me for disturbing 
 you with this news. We are bound, sooner or later, to con- 
 sult with you in the matter; and we think it right to pre- 
 pare your mind for what may be to come." 
 
 To this there was added a postscript in Mr. Playrnore's 
 handwriting: 
 
 "Pray observe strictly the caution which V. r. Benjamin 
 imprcs-es on you. And bear this in mind, as a warning from 
 me: If we succeed in reconstructing the cfltiro letter, the
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 last person living who ought (in my opinion) to be allowed 
 to see it is your husband." 
 
 CHAPTER XLVL 
 
 THE CRISIS DEFERRED. 
 
 " TAKE care, Valeria !" said Mrs. Macallan. " I ask you 
 no questions ; I only caution you for your own sake. Eus- 
 tace has noticed what I have noticed Eustace has seen a 
 change in you. Take care !" 
 
 So my mother-in-law spoke to me later in the day, when 
 we happened to be alone. I had done my best to conceal 
 all traces of the effect produced on me by the strange and 
 terrible news from Gleuinch. But who could read what I 
 had read, who could feel what I now felt, and still maintain 
 an undisturbed serenity of look and manner ? If I had been 
 the vilest hypocrite living, I doubt even then if my face 
 could have kept my secret while my mind was full of Ben- 
 jamin's letter. 
 
 Having spoken her word of caution, Mrs. Macallan made 
 no further advance to me. I dare say she was right. Still, 
 it seemed hard to be left, without a word of advice or of 
 sympathy, to decide for myself what it was my duty to my 
 husband to do next. 
 
 To show him Benjamin's narrative, in his state of health, 
 and in the face of the warning addressed to me, was simply 
 out of the question. At the same time, it was equally im- 
 possible, after I had already betrayed- myself, to keep him 
 entirely in the dark. I thought over it anxiously in the 
 night. When the morning came, I decided to appeal to my 
 husband's confidence in me. 
 
 I went straight to the point in these terms : 
 
 " Eustace, your mother said yesterday that you noticed a 
 change in me when I came back from my drive. Is she 
 right ?" 
 
 "Quite right, Valeria," he answered speaking in lower 
 tones than usual, and not looking at me. 
 
 "We have no concealments from each other now," I an- 
 swered. " I ought to tell you, and do tell you, that I found 
 a letter from ^England waiting at the banker's which has
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 337 
 
 caused me some agitation and alarm. Will you leave it to 
 me to choose my own time for speaking more plainly? And 
 will you believe, love, that I am really doing my duty to- 
 ward you, as a good wife, in making this request ?" 
 
 I paused. He made no answer : I could see that he was 
 secretly struggling with himself. Had I ventured too far? 
 Had I overestimated the strength of my influence ? My 
 heart beat fast, my voice faltered but I summoned courage 
 enough to take his hand, and to make a last appeal to him. 
 " Eustace," I said ; " don't you know me yet well enough to 
 trust me ?" 
 
 He turned toward me for the first time. I saw a last van- 
 ishing trace of doubt in his eyes as they looked into mine. 
 
 " You promise, sooner or later, to tell me the whole truth ?'* 
 he said. 
 
 " I promise with all my heart !" 
 
 " I trust you, Valeria !" 
 
 His brightening eyes told me that he really meant what 
 he said. We sealed our compact with a kiss. Pardon me 
 for mentioning these trifles I am still writing (if you will 
 kindly remember it) of our new honeymoon. 
 
 By that day's post I answered Benjamin's letter, telling 
 him what I had done, and entreating him, if he and Mr. Play- 
 more approved of my conduct, to keep me informed of any 
 future discoveries which they might make at Gleninch. 
 
 After an interval an endless interval, as it seemed to me 
 of ten days more, I received a second letter from my old 
 friend, with another postscript added by Mr. Playmore. 
 
 " We are advancing steadily and successfully with the 
 putting together of the letter," Benjamin wrote. "The one 
 new discovery which we have made is of serious importance 
 to your husband. We have reconstructed certain sentences 
 declaring, in the plainest words, that the arsenic which 
 Eustace procured was purchased at the request of his wife, 
 and was in her possession at Gleninch. This, remember, 
 is in the handwriting of the wife, and is signed by the 
 wife as we have also found out. Unfortunately, I am 
 obliged to add that the objection to taking your husband 
 into our confidence, mentioned when I last wrote, still re- 
 mains in force in greater force, I may say, than ever. The 
 more we make out of the letter, the more inclined we are (if
 
 338 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 we only studied our own feelings) to throw it back into the 
 dust-heap, in mercy to the memory of the unhappy writer. 
 I shall keep this open for a day or two. If there is more 
 news to tell you by that time you will hear of it from Mr. 
 Playrnore." 
 
 Mr. Playmore's postscript followed, dated three days later. 
 
 " The concluding part of the late Mrs. Macallan's letter to 
 her husband," the lawyer wrote, " has proved accidentally to 
 be the first part which we have succeeded in piecing togeth- 
 er. With the exception of a few gaps still left, here and 
 there, the writing of the closing paragraphs has been perfect- 
 ly reconstructed. I have neither the time nor the inclination 
 to write to you on this sad subject in any detail. In a fort- 
 night more, at the longest, we shall, I hope, send you ~a copy 
 of the letter, complete from the first line to the last. Mean- 
 while, it is my duty to tell you that there is one bright side 
 to this otherwise deplorable and shocking document. Legally 
 speaking, as well as morally speaking, it absolutely vindicates 
 your husband's innocence. And it may be lawfully used for 
 this purpose if he can reconcile it to his conscience, and to 
 the mercy due to the memory of the dead, to permit the pub- 
 lic exposure of the letter in Court. Understand me, he can 
 not be tried again on what we call the criminal charge for 
 certain technical reasons with which I need not trouble you. 
 But, if the facts which were involved at the criminal trial 
 can also be shown to be involved in a civil action (and in 
 this case they can), the entire matter may be made the sub- 
 ject of a new legal inquiry ; and the verdict of a second 
 jury, completely vindicating your husband, may thus be ob- 
 tained. Keep this information to yourself for the present. 
 Preserve the position which you have so sensibly adopted 
 toward Eustace until you have read the restored letter. 
 "When you have done this, my own idea is that you will 
 shrink, in pity to him, from letting him see it. How he is to 
 be kept in ignorance of what we have discovered is another 
 question, the discussion of which must be deferred until we 
 can consult together. Until that time comes, I can only re- 
 peat my advice wait till the next news reaches you from 
 Gleninch." 
 
 I waited. What I suffered, what Eustace thought of me, 
 does not matter. Nothing matters now but the facts. 
 
 In less than a fortnight more the task of restoring the let-
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 339 
 
 ter was completed. Excepting certain instances, in which 
 the morsels of the torn paper had been irretrievably lost 
 and in which it had been necessary to complete the sense in 
 harmony with the writer's intention the whole letter had 
 been put together ; and the promised copy of it was forward- 
 ed to me in Paris. 
 
 Before you, too, read that dreadful letter, do me one favor. 
 Let me briefly remind you of the circumstances under which 
 Eustace Macallan married his first wife. 
 
 Remember that the poor creature fell in love with him 
 without awakening any corresponding affection on his side. 
 Remember that he separated himself from her, and did all he 
 could to avoid her, when he found this out. Remember that 
 she presented herself at his residence in London without a 
 word of warning ; that he did his best to save her reputa- 
 tion ; that he failed, through no fault of his own ; and that 
 he ended, rashly ended in a moment of despair, by marrying 
 her, to silence the scandal that must otherwise have blighted 
 her life as a woman for the rest of her days. Bear all this 
 in mind (it is the sworn testimony of respectable witnesses) ; 
 and pray do not forget however foolishly and blamably he 
 may have written about her in the secret pages of his Diary 
 that he was proved to have done his best to conceal from 
 his wife the aversion which the poor soul inspired in him ; 
 and that he was (in the opinion of those who could best 
 judge him) at least a courteous and a considerate husband, 
 if he could be no more. 
 
 And now take the letter. It asks but one favor of you : 
 it asks to be read by the light of Christ's teaching " Judge 
 uot,that ye be not judged." 
 
 CHAPTER XLVII. 
 
 THE WIFI-:'s CONFESSION. 
 
 " GLENINCH, October 19, 18. 
 " MY HUSBAND, 
 
 " I have something very painful to tell you about one of 
 your oldest friends. 
 
 "You have never encouraged me to come to you with 
 any confidences of mine. If you had allowed me to be as
 
 340 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 familiar with you as some wives are with their husbands, I 
 should have spoken to you personally instead of writing. 
 As it is, I don't know how you might receive what I have 
 to say to you if I said it by woi'd of mouth. So I write. 
 
 "The man against whom I warn you is still a guest in 
 this house Miserrimus Dexter. No falser or wickeder 
 creature walks the earth. Don't throw my letter aside ! I 
 have waited to say this until I could find proof that might 
 satisfy you. I have got the proof. 
 
 " You may remember that I ventured to express some 
 disapproval when you first told me you had asked this man 
 to visit us. If you had allowed me time to explain myself, 
 I might have been bold enough to give you a good reason 
 for the aversion I felt toward your friend. But you would 
 not wait. You hastily (and most unjustly) accused me of 
 feeling prejudiced against the miserable creature on account 
 of his deformity. No other feeling than compassion for de- 
 formed persons has ever entered my mind. I have, indeed, al- 
 most a fellow-feeling for them; being that next worst thing 
 myself to a deformity a plain woman. I objected to Mr. 
 Dexter as your guest because he had asked me to be his 
 wife in past days, and because I had reason to fear that he 
 still regarded me (after my marriage) with a guilty and a hor- 
 rible love. Was it not my duty, as a good wife, to object 
 to his being your guest at Gleninch ? And was it not your 
 duty, as a good husband, to encourage me to say more? 
 
 "Well, Mr. Dexter has been your guest for many weeks; 
 and Mr. Dexter has dared to speak to me again of his love. 
 He has insulted me, and insulted you, by declaring that he 
 adores me and that you hate me. He has promised me a 
 life of unalloyed happiness, in a foreign country with my 
 lover; and he has prophesied for me a life of unendurable 
 misery at home with my husband. 
 
 " Why did I not make my complaint to you, and have this 
 monster dismissed from the house at once and forever ? 
 
 "Are you sure you would have believed me if I had com- 
 plained, and if your bosom friend had denied all intention 
 of insulting me ? I heard you once say (when you were not 
 aware that I was within hearing) that the vainest women 
 were always the ugly women. You might have accused me 
 of vanity. Who knows? 
 
 " But I have no desire to shelter myself under this excuse.
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. S41 
 
 I am a jealous, unhappy creature ; always doubtful of your 
 affection for me; always fearing that another woman has 
 got my place in your heart. Miserrimus Dexter has prac- 
 ticed on this weakness of mine. He has declared he can prove 
 to me (if I will permit him) that I am, in your secret heart, 
 an object of loathing to you ; that you shrink from touching 
 me ; that you curse the hour when you were foolish enough 
 to make me your wife. I have struggled as long as I could 
 against the temptation to let him produce his proofs. It was 
 a terrible temptation to a woman who was far from feeling 
 sure of the sincerity of your affection for her; and it has 
 ended in getting the better of my resistance. I wickedly 
 concealed the disgust which the wretch inspired in me ; I 
 wickedly gave him leave to explain himself; I wickedly per- 
 mitted this enemy of yours and of mine to take me into his 
 confidence. And why ? Because I loved you, and you only ; 
 and because Miserrirnus Dexter's proposal did, after all, echo 
 a doubt of you that had long been gnawing secretly at my 
 heart. 
 
 " Forgive me, Eustace ! This is my first sin against you. 
 It shall be my last. 
 
 "I will not spare myself; I will write a full confession 
 of what I said to him and of what he said to me. You may 
 make me suffer for it when you know what I have done ; 
 but you will at least be warned in time ; you will see your 
 false friend in his true light. 
 
 " I said to him, ' How can you prove to me that my hus- 
 band hates me in secret ?' 
 
 " He answered, ' I can prove it under his own handwriting ; 
 you shall see it in his Diary.' 
 
 "I said, 'His Diary has a lock; and the drawer in which 
 he keeps it has a lock. How can you get at the Diary and 
 the drawer?' 
 
 "He answered, 'I have my own way of getting at both 
 of them, without the slightest risk of being discovered by 
 your husband. All you have to do is to give me the oppor- 
 tunity of seeing you privately. I will engage, in return, to 
 bring the open Diary with me to your room.' 
 
 "I said, c How can I give you the opportunity ? What do 
 you mean ?' 
 
 " He pointed to the key in the door of communication be- 
 tween my room and the little study.
 
 342 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 " He said, ' With my infirmity, I may not be able to profit 
 by the first opportunity of visiting you here unobserved. I 
 must be able to choose my own time and my' own way of 
 getting to you secretly. Let me take this key, leaving the 
 door locked. When the key is missed, if you say it doesn't 
 matter if you point out that the door is locked, and tell the 
 servants not to trouble themselves about finding the key 
 there will be no disturbance in the house ; and I shall be in 
 secure possession of a means of communication with you 
 which no one will suspect. Will you do this?' 
 
 " I have done it. 
 
 "Yes! I have become the accomplice of this double-faced 
 villain. I have degraded myself and outraged you by mak- 
 ing an appointment to pry into your Diary. I know how 
 base my conduct is. I can make no excuse. I can only re- 
 peat that I love you, and that I am sorely afraid you don't 
 love me. And Miserrimus Dexter offers to end my doubts 
 by showing me the most secret thoughts of your heart, in 
 your own writing. 
 
 " He is to be with me, for this purpose (while you are out), 
 some time in the course of the next two hours. I shall de- 
 cline to be satisfied with only once looking at your Diary ; 
 and I shall make an appointment with him to bring it to me 
 again at the same time to-morrow. Before then you will 
 receive these lines by the hand of my nurse. Go out as usual 
 after reading them ; but return privately, and unlock the 
 table-drawer in which you keep your book. You will find 
 it gone. Post yourself quietly in the little study ; and you 
 will discover the Diary (when Miserrimus Dexter leaves me) 
 in the hands of your friend.* 
 
 "October 20. 
 
 " I have read your Diary. 
 "At last I know what you really think of me. I have read 
 
 * Note by Mr. Playmore : 
 
 The greatest difficulties of reconstruction occurred in this first portion 
 of the torn letter. In the fourth paragraph from the beginning we have 
 been obliged to supply lost words in no less than three places. In the ninth, 
 tenth, and seventeenth paragraphs the same proceeding was, in a greater or 
 less degree, found to be necessary. In all these cases the utmost pains have 
 been taken to supply the deficiency in exact accordance with what appeared 
 to be the meaning of the writer, as indicated in the existing pieces of the 
 manuscript.
 
 TUB LAW AND THE LADY. 343 
 
 what Miserrimus Dexter promised I should read the con- 
 fession of your loathing for me, in your own handwriting. 
 
 "You will not receive what I wrote to you yesterday at 
 the time or in the manner which I had proposed. Long as 
 my letter is, I have still (after reading your Diary) some 
 more words to add. After I have closed and sealed the en- 
 velope, and addressed it to you, I shall put it under my pillow. 
 It will be found there when I am laid out for the grave and 
 then, Eustace (when it is too late for hope or help), my letter 
 will be given to you. 
 
 "Yes: I have had enough of my life. Yes: I mean to die. 
 
 "I have already sacrificed every thing but my life to my 
 love for you. Now I know that my love is not returned, 
 the last sacrifice left is easy. My death will set you free to 
 marry Mrs. Beauly. 
 
 " You don't know what it cost me to control my hatred 
 of her, and to beg her to pay her visit here, without minding 
 my illness. I could never have done it if I had not been so 
 fond of you, and so fearful of irritating you against me by 
 showing my jealousy. And how did you reward me? Let 
 your Diary answer : ' I tenderly embraced her this very 
 morning ; and I hope, poor soul, she did not discover the ef- 
 fort that it cost me.' 
 
 " Well, I have discovered it now. I know that you pri- 
 vately think your life with me * a purgatory.' I know that 
 you have compassionately hidden from me the ' sense of 
 shrinking that comes over you when you are obliged to sub- 
 mit to my caresses.' I am nothing but an obstacle an ' ut- 
 terly distasteful' obstacle between you and the woman 
 whom you love so dearly that you ' adore the earth which 
 she touches with her foot.' Be it so ! I will stand in your 
 way no longer. It is no sacrifice and no merit on my part. 
 Life is unendurable to me, now I know that the man whom 
 I love with all my heart and soul secretly shrinks from me 
 whenever I touch him. 
 
 " I have got the means of death close at hand. 
 
 "The arsenic that I twice asked you to buy for me is in 
 my dressing-case. I deceived you when I mentioned some 
 commonplace domestic reasons for wanting it. My true 
 reason was to try if I could not improve my ugly complexion 
 not from any vain feeling of mine: only to make mysdf 
 look better and more lovable in your eyes. I have taken
 
 344 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 some of it for that purpose ; but I have got plenty left to 
 kill myself with. The poison will have its use at last. It 
 might have failed to improve my complexion it will not 
 fail to relieve you of your ugly wife. 
 
 " Don't let me be examined after death. Show this letter 
 to the doctor who attends me. It will tell him that I have 
 committed suicide ; it will prevent any innocent persons 
 from being suspected of poisoning me. I want nobody to be 
 blamed or punished. I shall remove the chemist's label, and 
 carefully empty the bottle containing the poison, so that he 
 may not suffer on my account. 
 
 "I must wait here, and rest a little while then take up 
 my letter again. It is far too long already. But these are 
 my farewell words. I may surely dwell a little on my last 
 talk with you ! 
 
 "October 21. Two o'clock in the morning. 
 " I sent you out of the room yesterday when you came in 
 to ask how I had passed the night. And I spoke of you 
 shamefully, Eustace, after you had gone, to the hired nurse 
 who attends on me. Forgive me. I am almost beside my- 
 self now. You know why. 
 
 " Half-past three. 
 
 " Oh, my husband, I have done the deed which will relieve 
 .you of the wife whom you hate ! I have taken the poison 
 all of it that was left in the paper packet, which was the first 
 that I found. If this is not enough to kill me, I have more 
 left in the bottle. 
 
 " Ten minutes past five. 
 
 " You have just gone, after giving me my composing 
 draught. My courage failed me at the sight of you. I 
 thought to myself, ' If he look at me kindly, I will confess 
 what I have done, and let him save my life.' You never 
 looked at me at all. You only looked at the medicine. I 
 let you go without saying a word. 
 
 " Half-past five. 
 
 "I begin to feel the first effects .of the poison. The nurse 
 is asleep at the foot of my bed. I won't call for assistance ; 
 I won't wake her. I will die. 
 
 " Half-past nine. 
 
 " The agony was beyond my endurance I awoke the nurse. 
 I have seen the doctor.
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 345 
 
 " Nobody suspects any thing. Strange to say, the pain 
 has left me; I have evidently taken too little of the poison. 
 I must open the bottle which contains the larger quantity. 
 Fortunately, you are not near me my resolution to die, or, 
 rather, my loathing of life, remains as bitterly unaltered as 
 ever. To make sure of my courage, I have forbidden the 
 nurse to send for you. She has just gone down-stairs by my 
 orders. I am free to get the poison out of my dressing-case. 
 
 " Ten minutes to ten. 
 
 " I had just time to hide the bottle (after the nurse had 
 left me) when you came into my room. 
 
 " I had another moment of weakness when I saw you. I 
 determined to give myself a last chance of life. That is to 
 say, I determined to offer you a last opportunity of treating 
 me kindly. I asked you to get me a cup of tea. If, in pay- 
 ing me this little attention, you only encouraged me by one 
 fond word or one fond look, I resolved not to take the second 
 dose of poison. 
 
 " You obeyed my wishes, but you were not kind. You 
 gave me my tea, Eustace, as if you were giving a drink to 
 your dog. And then you wondered in a languid way (think- 
 ing, I suppose, of Mrs. Beauly all the time), at my dropping 
 the cup in handing it back to you. I really could not help 
 it ; my hand would tremble. In my place, your hand might 
 have trembled too with the arsenic under the bedclothes? 
 You politely hoped, before you went away, that the tea would 
 do me good and, oh God, you could not even look at me 
 when you said that ! You looked at the broken bits of the 
 tea-cup. 
 
 "The instant you were out of the room I took the poison 
 a double dose this time. 
 
 "I have a little request to make here, while I think of it. 
 
 "After removing the label from the bottle, and putting it 
 back, clean, in my dressing-case, it struck me that I had failed 
 to take the same precaution (in the early morning) with the 
 empty paper-packet, bearing on it the name of the other chem- 
 ist. I threw it aside on the counterpane of the bed, among 
 some other loose papers. My ill-tempered nurse complained 
 of the litter, and crumpled them all up and put them away 
 somewhere. I hope the chemist will not suffer through my care- 
 lessness. Pray bear it in mind to say that he is not to blame.
 
 346 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 " Dexter something reminds me of Miserrimus Dexter. 
 He has put your Diary back again in the drawer, and he 
 presses me for an answer to his proposals. Has this false 
 wretch any conscience ? If he has, even he will suffer when 
 my death answers him. 
 
 "The nurse has been in my room again. I have sent her 
 away. I have told her I want to be alone. 
 
 "How is the time going? I can not find my watch. Is 
 the pain coming back again and paralyzing me ? I don't feel 
 it keenly yet. 
 
 " It may come back, though, at any moment. I have still 
 to close my letter and to address it to you. And, besides, I 
 must save up my strength to hide it under the pillow, so that 
 nobody may find it until after my death. 
 
 " Farewell, my dear. I wish I had been a prettier woman. 
 A more loving woman (toward you) I cojjld not bg^ Even 
 now I dread the sight of your dear face. Even now, if I al- 
 lowed myself the luxury of looking at you, I don't know that 
 you might not charm me into confessing what I have done 
 before it is too late to save me. 
 
 " But you are not here. Better as it is ! better as it is ! 
 
 "Once more, farewell! Be happier than you have been 
 with me. I love you, Eustace I forgive you. When you 
 have nothing else to think about, think sometimes, as kindly 
 as you can, of your poor, ugly 
 
 "SABA MACALLAN."* 
 
 * Note by Mr. Play more : 
 
 The lost words and phrases supplied in this concluding portion of the let- 
 ter are so few in number that it is needless to mention them. The fragments 
 which were found accidentally stuck together by the gum, and which repre- 
 sent the part of the letter first completely reconstructed, begin at the phrase, 
 "I spoke of you shamefully, Eustace;" and end with the broken sentence, 
 "If, in paying me this little attention, you only encouraged me by one fond 
 word or one fond look, I resolved not to take " With the assistance thus 
 afforded to us, the labor of putting together the concluding half of the letter 
 (dated "October 20") was trifling, compared with the almost insurmount- 
 able difficulties which we encountered in dealing with the scattered wreck of 
 the preceding pages.
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 347 
 
 CHAPTER XLVIII. 
 
 WHAT ELSE COULD I DO? 
 
 As soon as I could dry my eyes and. compose my spirits 
 after reading the wife's pitiable and dreadful farewell, my 
 first thought was of Eustace my first anxiety was to pre- 
 vent him from ever reading what I had read. 
 
 Yes ! to this end it had come. I had devoted my life to 
 the attainment of one object; and that object I had gained. 
 There, on the table before me, lay the triumphant vindication 
 of my husband's innocence ; and, in mercy to him, in mercy 
 to the memory of his dead wife, my one hope was that he 
 might never see it ! my one desire was to hide it from the 
 public view ! 
 
 I looked back at the strange circumstances under which 
 the letter had been discovered. 
 
 It was all my doing as the lawyer had said. And yet, what 
 I had done, I had, so to speak, done blindfold. The merest 
 accident might have altered the whole course of later events. 
 I had over and over again interfered to check Ariel when 
 she entreated the Master to " tell her a story." If she had 
 not succeeded, in spite of my opposition, Miserrimus Dexter's 
 last effort of memory might never have been directed to the 
 tragedy at Gleninch. And, again, if I had only remembered 
 to move my chair, and so to give Benjamin the signal to leave 
 off, he would never have written down the apparently sense- 
 less words which have led us to the discovery of the truth. 
 
 Looking back at events in this frame of mind, the very 
 sight of the letter sickened and horrified me. I cursed the 
 day which had disinterred the fragments of it from their foul 
 tomb. Just at the time when Eustace had found his weary 
 way back to health and strength ; just at the time when we 
 were united ajjain and happy again when a month or two 
 more might make us father and mother, as well as husband 
 and wife that frightful record of suffering and sin had risen 
 against us like an avenging spirit. There it faced me on the 
 table, threatening my husband's tranquillity; nay, for all I 
 knew (if he read it at the present critical stage of his recov- 
 ery) even threatening his life !
 
 348 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 The hour struck from the clock on the mantel-piece. It 
 was Eustace's time for paying me his morning visit in my 
 own little room. He might come in at any moment ; he 
 might see the letter ; he might snatch the letter out of my 
 hand. In a frenzy of terror and loathing, I caught up the 
 vile sheets of paper and threw them into the fire. 
 
 It was a fortunate thing that a copy only had been sent 
 to me. If the original letter had been in its place, I believe 
 I should have burned the original at that moment. 
 
 The last morsel of paper had been barely consumed by the 
 flames when the door opened, and Eustace came in. 
 
 He glanced at the fire. The black cinders of the burned 
 paper were still floating at the back of the grate. He had 
 seen the letter brought to me at the breakfast-table. Did 
 he suspect what I had done? He said nothing he stood 
 gravely looking into the fire. Then he advanced and fixed 
 his eyes on me. I suppose I was very pale. The first words 
 he spoke were words which asked me if I felt ill. 
 
 I was determined not to deceive him, even in the merest 
 trifle. 
 
 " I am feeling a little nervous, Eustace," I answered ; " that 
 is all." 
 
 He looked at me again, as if he expected me to say some- 
 thing more. I remained silent. He took a letter out of the 
 breast-pocket of his coat, and laid it on the table before me 
 just where the Confession had lain before I destroyed it ! 
 
 " I have had a letter too this morning," he said. " And 
 I, Valeria, have no secrets from you." 
 
 I understood the reproach which my husband's last words 
 conveyed ; but I made no attempt to answer him. 
 
 " Do you wish me to read it ?" was all I said, pointing to 
 the envelope which he had laid on the table. 
 
 "I have already said that I have no secrets from you," he 
 repeated. "The envelope is open. See for yourself what is 
 inclosed in it." 
 
 I took out not a letter, but a printed paragraph, cut from 
 a Scotch newspaper. 
 
 " Read it," said Eustace. 
 
 I read as follows : 
 
 "STRANGE DOINGS AT GLENINCH.-^-A romance in real life 
 seems to be in course of progress at Mr. Macallan's country-
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 349 
 
 house. Private excavations are taking place if our readers 
 will pardon us the unsavory allusion at the dust-heap, of 
 all places in. the world ! Something has assuredly been dis- 
 covered ; but nobody kuo\vs what. This alone is certain: 
 For weeks past two strangers from London (superintended by 
 our respected fellow-citizen, Mr. Playmore) have been at work 
 night and day in the library at Gleninch, with the door lock- 
 ed. Will the secret ever be revealed ? And will it throw any 
 light on a mysterious and shocking event which our readers 
 have leai-ned to associate with the past history of Gleninch ? 
 Perhaps when Mr. Macallan returns, he may be able to an- 
 swer these questions. In the mean time we can only await 
 events." 
 
 I laid the newspaper slip on the table, in no very Christian 
 frame of mind toward the persons concerned in producing 
 it. Some reporter in search of news had evidently been pry- 
 ing about the grounds at Gleninch, and some busybody in the 
 neighborhood had in all probability sent the published para- 
 graph to Eustace. Entirely at a loss what to do, I waited 
 for my husband to speak. He did not keep me in suspense 
 he questioned me instantly. 
 
 "Do you understand what it means, Valeria ?" 
 
 I answered honestly I owned that I understood what it 
 meant. 
 
 He waited again, as if he expected me to say more. I still 
 kept the only refuge left to me the refuge of silence. 
 
 " Am I to know no more than I know now ?" he proceeded, 
 after an interval. " Are you not bound to tell me what is 
 going on in my own house ?" 
 
 It is a common remark that people, if they can think at all, 
 think quickly in emergencies. There was but one way out 
 of the embarrassing position in which my husband's last 
 words had placed me. My instincts showed me the way, I 
 suppose. At any rate, I took it. 
 
 " You have promised to trust me," I began. 
 
 lie admitted that he had promised. 
 
 " I must ask you, for your own sake, Eustace, to trust me 
 for a little while longer. I Avill satisfy you, if you will only 
 give me time." 
 
 His face darkened. "IIo\v much longer must I wait?" 
 he asked.
 
 350 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 I saw that the time had come for trying some stronger 
 form of persuasion than words. 
 
 " Kiss me," I said, " before I tell you !" 
 
 He hesitated (so like a husband !). And I persisted (so 
 like a wife !). There was no choice for him but to yield. 
 Having given me my kiss (not over-graciously), he insisted 
 once more on knowing how much longer I wanted him to 
 wait. 
 
 " I want you to wait," I answered, " until our child is born." 
 
 He started. My condition took him by surprise. I gently 
 pressed his hand, and gave him a look. He returned the 
 look (warmly enough, this time, to satisfy me). " Say you 
 consent," I whispered. 
 
 He consented. 
 
 So I put oif the day of reckoning once more. So I gained 
 time to consult again with Benjamin and Mr. Playmore. 
 
 While Eustace remained with me in the room, I was com- 
 posed, and capable of talking to him. But when he left 
 me, after a time, to think over what had passed between us, 
 and to remember how kindly he had given way to me, my 
 heart turned pityingly to those other wives (better women, 
 some of them, than I am), whose husbands, under similar cir- 
 cumstances, would have spoken hard words to them would 
 perhaps even have acted more cruelly still. The contrast 
 thus suggested between their fate and mine quite overcame 
 me. What had I done to deserve my happiness ? What had 
 they done, poor souls, to deserve their misery ? My nerves 
 were overwrought, I dare say, after reading the dreadful 
 confession of Eustace's first wife. I burst out crying and 
 I was all the better for it afterward ! 
 
 CHAPTER XLIX. 
 
 PAST AND FUTURE. 
 
 I WHITE from memory, unassisted by notes or diaries ; and 
 I have no distinct recollection of the length of our residence 
 abroad. It certainly extended over a period of some months. 
 Long after Eustace was strong enough to take the journey 
 to London the doctors persisted in keeping him in Paris. 
 He had shown symptoms of weakness in one of his lung?,
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 351 
 
 and his medical advisers, seeing that he prospered in the 
 dry atmosphere of Franoe, warned him to be careful of 
 breathing too soon the moist air of his own country. 
 
 Thus it happened that we were still in Paris when I re- 
 ceived my next news from Gleninch. 
 
 This time no letters passed on either side. To my sur- 
 prise and delight, Benjamin quietly made his appearance 
 one morning in our pretty French drawing-room. He was 
 so preternaturally smart in his dress, and so incomprehensi- 
 bly anxious (while my husband was in the way) to make 
 us understand that his reasons for visiting Paris were holi- 
 day reasons only, that I at once suspected him of having 
 crossed the Channel in a double character say, as tourist 
 in search of pleasure, when third persons were present ; as 
 embassador from Mr. Playmore, when he and I had the room 
 to ourselves. 
 
 Later in the day I contrived that we should be left to- 
 gether, and I soon found that my anticipations had not mis- 
 led me. Benjamin had set out for Paris, at Mr. Playmore's 
 express request, to consult with me as to the future, and to 
 enlighten me as to the past. He presented me with his cre- 
 dentials in the shape of a little note from the lawyer. 
 
 "There are some few points" (Mr. Playmore wrote) "which 
 the recovery of the letter does not seem to clear up. I have 
 done my best, with Mr. Benjamin's assistance, to find the 
 right explanation of these debatable matters ; and I have 
 treated the subject, for the sake of brevity, in the form of 
 Questions and Answers. Will you accept me as interpreter, 
 after the mistakes I made when you consulted me in Edin- 
 burgh? Events, I admit, have proved that I was entirely 
 wrong in trying to prevent you from returning to Dexter 
 and partially Avrong in suspecting Dexter of being directly, 
 instead of indirectly, answerable for the first Mrs. Eustace's 
 death. I frankly make my confession, and leave you to tell 
 Mr. Benjamin whether you think my new Catechism worthy 
 of examination or not." 
 
 I thought his " new Catechism" (as he called it) decidedly 
 worthy of examination. If you don't agree with this view, 
 and if you are dying to be done with me and my narrative, 
 pass on to the next chapter by all means ! 
 
 Benjamin produced the Questions and Answers; and read 
 them to me, at my request, in these terms :
 
 352 TUE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 " Questions suggested by the letter discovered at Gleninch. 
 First Group : Questions relating to the Diary. First Ques- 
 tion : In obtaining access to Mr. Macallan's private journal, 
 was Miserrimus Dexter guided by any previous knowledge 
 of its contents ? 
 
 "Answer : It is doubtful if he had any such knowledge. 
 The probabilities are that he -noticed how carefully Mi\ 
 Macallan secured his Diary from, observation ; that he in- 
 ferred therefrom the existence of dangerous domestic secrets 
 in the locked -up pages; and that he speculated on using 
 those secrets for his own purpose when he caused the false 
 keys to be made. 
 
 " Second Question : To what motive are we to attribute 
 Miserrimus Dexter's interference with the sheriff's officers, 
 on the day when they seized Mr. Macallan's Diary along 
 with his other papers ? 
 
 "Answer: In replying to this question, we must first do 
 justice to Dexter himself. Infamously as we now know him 
 to have acted, the man was not a downright fiend. That he 
 secretly hated Mr. Macallan, as his successful rival in the 
 affections of the woman whom he loved and that he did all 
 he could to induce the unhappy lady to desert her husband 
 are, in this case, facts not to be denied. On the other 
 hand, it is fairly to be doubted whether he were additionally 
 capable of permitting the friend who trusted him to be tried 
 for murder, through his fault, without making an effort to 
 save the innocent man. It had naturally never occurred to 
 Mr. Macallan (being guiltless of his wife's death) to destroy 
 his Diary and his letters, in the fear that they might be used 
 against him. Until the prompt and secret action of the Fis- 
 cal took him by surprise, the idea of his being charged with 
 the murder of his wife was an idea which we know, from his 
 own statement, had never even entered his mind. But Dex- 
 ter must have looked at the matter from another point of 
 view. In his last wandering words (spoken when his mind 
 broke down) he refers to the Diary in these terms, 'The 
 Diary will hang him ; I won't have him hanged.' If he could 
 have found his opportunity of getting at it in time or if the 
 sheriff's officers had not been too quick for him there can 
 be no reasonable doubt that Dexter would have himself de- 
 stroyed the Diary, foreseeing the consequences of its produc- 
 tion in court. So strongly does he appear to have felt these
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 353 
 
 considerations, that ho even resisted the officers in the exe- 
 cution of their duty. His agitation when he sent for Air. 
 Playmore to interfere was witnessed by that gentleman, and 
 (it may not be amiss to add) was genuine agitation beyond 
 dispute. 
 
 " Questions of the Second Group : relating to the Wife's 
 Confession. First Question : What prevented Dexter from 
 destroying the letter, when he first discovered it under the 
 dead woman's pillow ? 
 
 "Answer: The same motives which led him to resist the 
 seizure of the Diary, and to give his evidence in the pris- 
 oner's favor at the Trial, induced him to preserve the letter 
 until the verdict was known. Looking back once more. at 
 his last words (as taken down by Mr. Benjamin), we may 
 infer that if the verdict had been Guilty, he would not have 
 hesitated to save the innocent husband by producing the 
 wife's confession. There are degrees in all wickedness. 
 Dexter was wicked enough to suppress the letter, which 
 wounded his vanity by revealing him as an object for loath- 
 ing and contempt but he was not wicked enough deliber- 
 ately to let an innocent man perish on the scaffold. He was 
 capable of exposing the rival whom he hated to the infamy 
 and torture of a public accusation of murder ; but, in the 
 event of an adverse verdict, he shrank before the direr cruel- 
 ty of letting him be hanged. Reflect, in this connection, on 
 what he must have suffered, villain as he was, when he first 
 read the wife's confession. He had calculated on undermin- 
 ing her affection for her husband and whither had his cal- 
 culations led him? He had driven the woman whom he 
 loved to the last dreadful refuge of death by suicide ! Give 
 these considerations their due weight; and you will under- 
 stand that some little redeeming virtue might show itself, as 
 the result even of this man's remorse. 
 
 "Second Question: What motive influenced Miserrimus 
 Dexter's conduct, when Mrs. (Valeria) Macallan informed him 
 that she proposed reopening the inquiry into the poisoning 
 at Gleuinch ? 
 
 "Answer: In all probability, Dexter's guilty fears sug- 
 gested to him that lie might have been watched on the 
 morning when he secretly entered the chamber in which the 
 first Mrs. Eustace lay dead. Feeling no scruples himself to 
 restrain him from listening at doors and looking through
 
 354 THE LAW AXD THE LADY. 
 
 keyholes, He would be all the more ready to suspect other 
 people of the same practices. With this dread in him, it 
 would naturally occur to his mind that Mrs. Valeria might 
 meet with the person who had watched him, and might hear 
 all that the person had discovered unless he led her astray 
 at the outset of her investigations. Her own jealous sus- 
 picions of Mrs. Beauly offered him the chance of easily doing 
 this. And he was all the readier to profit by the chance, 
 being himself animated by the most hostile feeling toward 
 that lady. He knew her as the enemy who destroyed the 
 domestic peace of the mistress of the house ; he loved the 
 mistress of the house and he hated her enemy accordingly. 
 The preservation of his guilty secret, and the persecution of 
 Mrs. Beauly : there you have the greater and the lesser mo- 
 tive of his conduct in his relations with Mrs. Eustace the 
 second !"* 
 
 Benjamin laid down his notes, and took off his spectacles. 
 
 " We have not thought it necessary to go farther than 
 this," he said. " Is there any point you can think of that is 
 still left unexplained ?" 
 
 I reflected. There was no point of any importance left 
 unexplained that I could remember. But there was one 
 little matter (suggested by the recent allusions to Mrs. Beau- 
 ly) which I wished (if possible) to have thoroughly cleared 
 up. 
 
 " Have you and Mr. Playmore ever spoken together on the 
 subject of my husband's former attachment to Mrs. Beauly ?" 
 I asked. "Has Mr. Playmore ever told you why Eustace 
 did not marry her, after the Trial ?" 
 
 " I put that question to Mr. Playmore myself," said Ben- 
 jamin. "He answered it easily enough. Being your hus- 
 band's confidential friend and adviser, he was consulted when 
 Mr. Eustace wrote to Mrs. Beauly, after the Trial ; and he 
 repeated the substance of the letter, at my request. Would 
 you like to hear what I remember of it, in my turn?" 
 
 I owned that I should like to hear it. ^What Benjamin 
 thereupon told me, exactly coincided withfvhat Mtserrimus 
 
 * Note by the writer of the Narrative: 
 
 Look back for a further illustration of this point of view to the scene at 
 Benjamin's house (Chapter XXXV.), where Dexter, in a moment of un- 
 governable agitation, betrays his own secret to Valeria.
 
 THE LAW AM) THE LADY. 355 
 
 Dexter had told me as related in the thirtieth chapter of 
 my narrative. Mrs. Bcauly had been a witness of the public 
 degradation of my husband. That was enough in itself to 
 prevent him from marrying her. He broke off with her for 
 the same reason which had led him to separate himself from 
 me. Existence with a woman who knew that he had been 
 tried for his life as a murderer was an existence which he had 
 not resolution enough to face. The two accounts agreed in 
 every particular. At last my jealous curiosity was pacified ; 
 and Benjamin was free to dismiss the past from further con- 
 sideration, and to approach the more critical and more inter- 
 esting topic of the future. 
 
 His first inquiries related to Eustace. He asked if my 
 husband had any suspicion of the proceedings which had 
 taken place at Gleniuch. 
 
 I told him what had happened, and how I had contrived 
 to put off the inevitable disclosure for a time. 
 
 My old friend's face cleared up as he listened to me. 
 
 " This will be good news for Mr. Play more," he said. " Our 
 excellent friend, the lawyer, is sorely afraid that our discov- 
 eries may compromise your position with your husband. On 
 the one hand, he is naturally anxious to spare Mr. Eustace 
 the distress which he must certainly feel, if he read his first 
 wife's confession. On the other hand, it is impossible, in 
 justice (as Mr. Play more puts it) to the unborn children of 
 your marriage, to suppress a document which vindicates the 
 memory of their father from the aspersion that the Scotch 
 Verdict might otherwise cast on it." 
 
 I listened attentively. Benjamin had touched on a trouble 
 which was still secretly preying on my mind. 
 
 " How does Mr. Playmore propose to meet the difficulty ?" 
 I asked. 
 
 " He can only meet it in one way," Benjamin replied. " He 
 proposes to seal up the original manuscript of the letter, and 
 to add to it a plain statement of the circumstances under 
 which it was discovered, supported by your signed attesta- 
 tion and mine, as witnesses to the fact. This done, he must 
 leave it to you to take your husband into your confidence, 
 at your own time. It will then be for Mr. Eustace to de- 
 cide whether he will open the inclosurc or whether he will 
 leave it, with the seal unbroken, as an heirloom to his chil- 
 dren, to be made public or not, at their discretion, when they
 
 S5G THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 are of an age to think for themselves. Do you consent to 
 this, my dear? or would you prefer that Mr. Playmore should 
 see your husband, and act for you in the matter ?" 
 
 I decided, without hesitation, to take the responsibility on 
 myself. Where the question of guiding Eustace's decision 
 was concerned, I considered my influence to be decidedly 
 superior to the influence of Mr. Playmore. My choice met 
 with Benjamin's full approval. He arranged to write to 
 Edinburgh, and relieve the lawyer's anxieties by that day's 
 post. 
 
 The one last thing now left to be settled related to our 
 plans for returning to England. The doctors were the au- 
 thorities on this subject. I promised to consult them about 
 it at their next visit to Eustace. 
 
 "Have you any thing more to say to me?" Benjamin in- 
 quired, as he opened his writing-case. 
 
 I thought of Miserrimus Dexter and Ariel ; and I inquired 
 if he had heard any news of them lately. My old friend 
 sighed, and warned me that I had touched on a painful sub- 
 ject. 
 
 "The best thing that can happen to that unhappy man is 
 likely to happen," he said. "The one change in him is a 
 change that threatens paralysis. You may hear of his death 
 before you get back to England." 
 
 "And Ariel?" I asked. 
 
 "Quite unaltered," Benjamin answered. "Perfectly hap- 
 py so long as she is with ' the Master.' From all I can hear 
 of her, poor soul, she doesn't reckon Dexter among mortal 
 beings. She laughs at the idea of his dying ; and she waits 
 patiently, in the firm persuasion that he will recognize her 
 again." 
 
 Benjamin's news saddened and silenced me. I left him to 
 his letter. 
 
 CHAPTER L. 
 
 THE LAST OF THE STOEY. 
 
 IN ten days more we returned to England, accompanied 
 by Benjamin. 
 
 Mrs. Macallan's house in London offered us ample accom-
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 357 
 
 inodation. We gladly availed ourselves of her proposal, 
 when she invited us to stay with her until our child was 
 born, and our plans for the future were arranged. 
 
 The sad news from the asylum (for which Benjamin had 
 prepared my mind at Paris) reached me soon after our re- 
 turn to England. Miserrimus Dexter's release from the bur- 
 den of life had come to him by slow degrees. A few hours 
 before he breathed his last he rallied for a while, and recog- 
 nized Ariel at his bedside. He feebly pronounced her name, 
 and looked at her, and asked for me. They thought of send- 
 ing for me, but it was too late. Before the messenger could 
 be dispatched, he said with a touch of his old self-impor- 
 tance, " Silence all of you ! my brains are weary ; I am going 
 to sleep." He closed his eyes in slumber, and never awoke 
 again. So for this man too the end came mercifully, without 
 grief or pain ! So that strange and many-sided life with 
 its guilt and its misery, its fitful flashes of poetry and hu- 
 mor, its fantastic gayety, cruelty, and vanity ran its des- 
 tined course, and faded out like a dream ! 
 
 Alas for Ariel ! She had lived for the Master what more 
 could she do, now the Master was gone ? She could die for 
 him. 
 
 They had mercifully allowed her to attend the funeral of 
 Miserrimus Dexter in the hope that the ceremony might 
 avail to convince her of his death. The anticipation was 
 not realized ; she still persisted in denying that " the Mas- 
 ter " had left her. They were obliged to restrain the poor 
 creature by force when the coffin was lowered into the grave; 
 and they could only remove her from the cemetery by the 
 same means when the burial-service was over. From that 
 time her life alternated, for a few weeks, between fits of rav- 
 ing delirium and intervals of lethargic repose. At the an- 
 nual ball given in the asylum, when the strict superintend- 
 ence of the patients was in some degree relaxed, the alarm 
 was raised, a little before midnight, that Ariel was missing. 
 The nurse in charge had left her asleep, and had yielded to 
 the temptation of going down-stairs to look at the dancing. 
 When the woman returned to her post, Ariel was gone. 
 The presence of strangers, and the confusion incidental to 
 the festival, offered her facilities for escaping which would 
 not have presented themselves at any other time. That 
 night the search for her proved to be useless. The next 
 Q2
 
 358 THE LA.TV AND THE LADY. 
 
 morning brought with it the last touching and terrible ti- 
 dings of her. She had strayed back to the burial-ground ; 
 and she had been found toward sunrise, dead of cold and ex- 
 posure, on Miserrimus Dexter's grave. Faithful to the last, 
 Ariel had followed the Master ! Faithful to the last, Ariel 
 had died on the Master's grave ! 
 
 Having written these sad words, I turn willingly to a less 
 painful theme. 
 
 Events had separated me from Major Fitz-David, after 
 the date of the dinner-party which had witnessed my memor- 
 able meeting with Lady Clarinda. From that time I heard 
 little or nothing of the Major ; and I am ashamed to say I 
 had almost entirely forgotten him when I was reminded 
 of the modern Don Juan by the amazing appearance of 
 wedding -cards, addressed to me at my mother-in-law's 
 house ! The Major had settled in life at last. And, more 
 wonderful still, the Major had chosen as the lawful ruler of 
 his household and himself "the future Queen of Song," 
 the round -eyed, overdressed young lady with the strident 
 soprano voice ! 
 
 We paid our visit of congratulation in due form ; and we 
 really did feel for Major Fitz-David. 
 
 The ordeal of marriage had so changed my gay and gal- 
 lant admirer of former times, that I hardly knew him again. 
 He had lost all his pretensions to youth: he had become, 
 hopelessly and undisguisedly, an old man. Standing behind 
 the chair on which his imperious young wife sat enthroned, 
 he looked at her submissively between every two words that 
 he addressed to me, as if he waited for her permission to open 
 his lips and speak. Whenever she interrupted him and she 
 did it, over and over again, without ceremony he submit- 
 ted with a senile docility and admiration, at once absurd and 
 shocking to see. 
 
 " Isn't she beautiful ?" he said to me (in his wife's hear- 
 ing !). " What a figure, and what a voice ! You remember 
 her voice ? It's a loss, my dear lady, an irretrievable loss, to 
 the operatic stage ! Do you know, when I think what that 
 grand creature might have done, I sometimes ask myself if I 
 really had any right to marry her. I feel, upon my honor I 
 feel, as if I had committed a fraud on the public !" 
 
 As for the favored object of this quaint mixture of admi-
 
 THE LAW AND TIIK LADY. 359 
 
 ration and regret, she was pleased to receive me graciously, 
 as an old friend. While Eustace was talking to the Major, 
 the bride drew rne aside out of their hearing, and explained 
 her motives for marrying, with a candor which was positive- 
 ly shameless. 
 
 " You see we are a large family at home, quite unprovided 
 for!" this odious young woman whispered in my ear. "It's 
 all very well about my being a 'Queen of Song' and the 
 rest of it. Lord bless you, I have been often enough to the 
 opera, and I have learned enough of my music-master, to 
 know what it takes to make a fine singer. I haven't the pa- 
 tience to work at it as those foreign women do : a parcel of 
 brazen-faced Jezebels I hate them ! Xo ! no ! between you 
 and me, it was a great deal easier to get the money by mar- 
 rying the old gentleman. Here I am, provided for and 
 there's all my family provided for, too and nothing to do 
 but to spend the money. I am fond of my family ; I'm a 
 good daughter and sister I am ! See how I'm dressed ; 
 look at the furniture : I haven't played my cards badly, have 
 I ? It's a great advantage to marry an old man you can 
 twist him round your little finger. Happy ? Oh, yes ! I'm 
 quite happy ; and I Lope you are, too. Where are you liv- 
 ing now? I shall call soon, and have a long gossip with 
 you. I always had a sort of liking for you, and (now I'm as 
 good as you are) I want to be friends." 
 
 I made a short and civil reply to this; determining in- 
 wardly that when she did visit me she should get no farther 
 than the house-door. I don't scruple to say that I was thor- 
 oughly disgusted with her. When a woman sells herself to 
 a man, that vile bargain is none the less infamous (to my 
 mind) because it happens to be made under the sanction of 
 the Church and the Law. 
 
 As I sit at the desk thinking, the picture of the Major and 
 liis wife vanishes from my memory and the last scene in 
 my story comes slowly into view. 
 
 The place is my bedroom. The persons (both, if you will 
 be pleased to excuse them, in bed) are myself and my son. 
 Iff is already three weeks old; and he is now lying fast 
 asleep by his mother's side. My good Uncle Starkweather 
 is coming to London to baptize him. Mrs. Macallan will be
 
 3GO THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 his godmother; and his godfathers will be Benjamin and 
 Mr. Playmore. I wonder whether my christening will pass 
 off more merrily than my wedding ? 
 
 The doctor has just left the house, in some little perplex- 
 ity about me. He has found me reclining as usual (latterly) 
 in my arm-chair; but on this particular day he has detect- 
 ed symptoms of exhaustion, which he finds quite unaccount- 
 able under the circumstances, and which warn him to exert 
 his authority by sending me back to my bed. 
 
 The truth is that I have not taken the doctor into my con- 
 fidence. There are two causes for those signs of exhaustion 
 which have surprised my medical attendant and the names 
 of them are Anxiety and Suspense. 
 
 On this day I have at last summoned courage enough to 
 perform, the promise which I made to my husband in Paris. 
 He is informed, by this time, how his wife's confession was 
 discovered. He knows (on Mr. Playmore's authority) that 
 the letter may be made the means, if he so will it, of pub- 
 licly vindicating his innocence in a Court of Law. And, last 
 and most important of all, he is now aware that the Confes- 
 sion itself has been kept a sealed secret from him, out of 
 compassionate regard for his own peace of mind, as well as 
 for the memory of the unhappy woman who was once his 
 wife. 
 
 These necessary disclosures I have communicated to my 
 husband not by word of mouth ; when the time came, I 
 shrank from speaking to him personally of his first wife but 
 by a written statement of the circumstances, taken mainly 
 out of my letters received in Paris from Benjamin and Mr. 
 Playmore. He has now had ample time to read all that I 
 have written to him, and to reflect on it in the retirement of 
 his own study. I am waiting, with the fatal letter in my 
 hand and my mother-in-law is waiting in the next room to 
 m e to hear from his own lips whether he decides to break 
 the seal or not. 
 
 The minutes pass ; and still we fail to hear his footstep on 
 the stairs. My doubts as to which way his decision may 
 turn affect me more and more uneasily the longer I wait. 
 The very possession of the letter, in the present excited state 
 of my nerves, oppresses and revolts me. I shrink from touch- 
 ing it or looking at it. I move it about restlessly from place 
 to place on the bed, and still I can not keep it out of my mind.
 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 301 
 
 At last, an odd fancy strikes mo. I lift up one of the baby's 
 hands, and put the letter under it and so associate that 
 dreadful record of sin and misery with something innocent 
 and pretty that seems to hallow and to purify it. 
 
 The minutes pass; the half-hour longer strikes from the 
 clock on the chimney-piece ; and at last I hear him ! He 
 knocks softly, and opens the door. 
 
 He is deadly pale : I fancy I can detect traces of tears on 
 his cheeks. But no outward signs of agitation escape him as 
 he takes his seat by my side. I can see that he has waited 
 until he could control himself for my sake. 
 
 He takes my hand, and kisses me tenderly. 
 
 " Valeria !" he says ; " let me once more ask you to for- 
 give what I said and did in the by-gone time. If I under- 
 stand nothing else, my love, I understand this : The proof 
 of my innocence has been found ; and I owe it entirely to the 
 courage and the devotion of my wife !" 
 
 I wait a little, to enjoy the full luxury of hearing him say 
 those words to revel in the love and the gratitude that 
 moisten his dear eyes as they look at me. Then I rouse my 
 resolution, and put the momentous question on which our 
 future depends. 
 
 " Do you wish to see the letter, Eustace ?" 
 
 Instead of answering directly, he questions me in his turn. 
 
 " Have you got the letter here ?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "Sealed up?" 
 
 "Sealed up." 
 
 He waits a little, considering what he is going to say next 
 before he says it. 
 
 "Let me be sure that I know exactly what it is I have to 
 decide," he proceeds. " Suppose I insist on reading the let- 
 ter ?" 
 
 There I interrupt him. I know it is my duty to restrain 
 myself. But I can not do my duty. 
 
 " My darling, don't talk of reading the letter ! Pray, pray 
 spare yourself " 
 
 He holds up his hand for silence. 
 
 " I am not thinking of myself," he says. " I am thinking 
 of my dead wife. If I give up the public vindication of my 
 innocence, in my own lifetime if I leave the seal of the let- 
 ter unbroken do you say, as Mr. Playmorc says, that I shall
 
 362 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 
 be acting mercifully and tenderly toward the memory of 
 my wife ?" 
 
 " Oh, Eustace, there can not be the shadow of a doubt of 
 it!" 
 
 "Shall I be making some little atonement for any pain 
 that I may have thoughtlessly caused her to suffer in her 
 lifetime ?" 
 
 "Yes! yes!" 
 
 "And, Valeria shall I please You ?" 
 
 " My darling, you will enchant me !" 
 
 "Where is the letter?" 
 
 " In your son's hand, Eustace." 
 
 He goes around to the other side of lie bed, and lifts the 
 baby's little pink hand to his lips. For a while he waits so, 
 in sad and secret communion with himself. I see his mother 
 softly open the door, and watch him as I am watching him. 
 In a moment more our suspense is at an end. With a heavy 
 sigh, he lays the child's hand back again on the sealed letter ; 
 and by that one little action says (as if in words) to his son 
 " I leave it to You !" 
 
 And so it ended ! Not as I thought it would end ; not 
 perhaps as you thought it would end. What do we know 
 of our own lives ? What do we know of the fulfillment of our 
 dearest wishes? God knows and that is best. 
 
 Must I shut up the paper? Yes. There is nothing more 
 for you to read or for me to say. 
 
 Except this as a postscript. Don't bear hardly, good 
 people, on the follies and the errors of my husband's life. 
 Abuse me as much as you please. But pray think kindly of 
 Eustace for my sake. 
 
 THE END.
 
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