planation, but this I cannot give, for I do not
understand the circumstances. Mr. Gaskell, your guardian, will, I
believe, add to this account a few notes of his own, which may tend to
elucidate some points, as he is in possession of certain facts of which
I am still ignorant.

MR. GASKELL'S NOTE

I have read what Miss Maltravers has written, and have but little to add
to it. I can give no explanation that will tally with all the facts or
meet all the difficulties involved in her narrative. The most obvious
solution of some points would be, of course, to suppose that Sir John
Maltravers was insane. But to anyone who knew him as intimately as I
did, such an hypothesis is untenable; nor, if admitted, would it explain
some of the strangest incidents. Moreover, it was strongly negatived by
Dr. Frobisher, from whose verdict in such matters there was at the time
no appeal, by Dr. Dobie, and by Dr. Bruton, who had known Sir John from
his infancy. It is possible that towards the close of his life he
suffered occasionally from hallucination, though I could not positively
affirm even so much; but this was only when his health had been
completely undermined by causes which are very difficult to analyse.

When I first knew him at Oxford he was a strong man physically as
well as mentally; open-hearted, and of a merry and genial temperament.
At the same time he was, like most cultured persons--and especially
musicians,--highly strung and excitable. But at a certain point in his
career his very nature seemed to change; he became reserved, secretive,
and saturnine. On this moral metamorphosis followed an equally startling
physical change. His robust health began to fail him, and although there
was no definite malady which doctors could combat, he went gradually
from bad to worse until the end came.

The commencement of this extraordinary change coincided, I believe,
almost exactly with his discovery of the Stradivarius violin; and
whether this was, after all, a mere coincidence or something more it is
not easy to say. Until a very short time before his death neither Miss
Maltravers nor I had any idea how that instrument had come into his
possession, or I think something might perhaps have been done to save
him.

Though towards the end of his life he spoke freely to his sister of the
finding of the violin, he only told her half the story, for he concealed
from her entirely that there was anything else in the hidden cupboard