ting. He signed the
register, and took the arsenic away with him, after paying for it."

The cross-examination of the two men succeeded in asserting 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 Gleninch--wound the
chain of hostile evidence around the prisoner 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, of 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 gardener:

"Neither my master nor any other person gave me any arsenic to destroy
rats at any time. No such thing was wanted. 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 evidence. Nothing
could be extracted from them on cross-examination except that there
might have been rats in the house, though they were not aware 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 rung 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 upstairs 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 Ormsa