ge of Mademoiselle de Tourville extended; but how
could we impart that impression to an Old Bailey jury of those days,
deprived as we should be of the aid of counsel to address the jury, when
in reality a speech, pointing to the improbabilities arising from
character, and the altogether _un_guilty-like mode of administering the
fatal liquid, was the only possible defence? Cross-examination promised
nothing; for the evidence would consist of the dying deposition of Mrs.
Rushton, the finding of the laurel-water, and the medical testimony as to
the cause of death. The only person upon whom suspicion glanced was La
Houssaye, and that in a vague and indistinct manner. Still, it was
necessary to find him without delay, and Mr. White at once sought him at
his lodgings, of which Mademoiselle de Tourville furnished the address.
He had left the house suddenly with all his luggage early in the morning,
and our efforts to trace him proved fruitless. In the meantime the
_post-mortem_ examination of the body had taken place, and a verdict of
willful murder against Eugenie de Tourville been unhesitatingly returned.
She was soon afterwards committed to Newgate for trial.

The Old Bailey session was close at hand, and Arthur Rushton, though
immediate danger was over, was still in too delicate and precarious a
state to be informed of the true position of affairs when the final day
of trial arrived. The case had excited little public attention. It was
not the fashion in those days to exaggerate the details of crime, and,
_especially before trial_, give the wings of the morning to every fact
or fiction that rumor with her busy tongue obscurely whispered. Twenty
lines of the "Times" would contain the published record of the
commitment of Eugenie de Tourville for poisoning her mistress, Caroline
Rushton; and, alas! spite of the crippled but earnest efforts of the
eminent counsel we had retained, and the eloquent innocence of her
appearance and demeanor, her conviction and condemnation to death
without hope of mercy! My brain swam as the measured tones of the
recorder, commanding the almost immediate and violent destruction of
that beauteous masterpiece of God, fell upon my ear; and had not Mr.
White, who saw how greatly I was affected, fairly dragged me out of
court into the open air, I should have fainted. I scarcely remember how
I got home--in a coach, I believe; but face Rushton after that dreadful
scene with a kindly-meant deception--_lie