d
insisted on my drinking it.

"You shall see him," said the Major. "I promise you that. The doctor has
forbidden him to leave the house until you have seen him. Only wait a
little! My poor, dear lady, wait, if it is only for a few minutes, until
you are stronger."

I had no choice but to obey him. Oh, those miserable, helpless
minutes on the sofa! I cannot write of them without 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 Major, sadly. "How can
I, how can anybody, 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 innocence 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 discovery appeared to have suggested
no painful association to your mind. It is not more than three years
since all England 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."

"I think I can explain my strange ignorance of what was so well known to
every one else. Three years since my father was alive. I was living with
him in a country-house in Italy--up in the mountains, near Sienna. 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 forgot 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.

"Eu