cified 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 disagreements 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
affectionately 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 exactly as I found it in the bottle. I afterward gave her the
cup of tea exactly as I received it from the under-housemaid's hand. I
never had access to the arsenic after I placed the two packages in my
wife's possession. I am entirely ignorant 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 proceedings 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 (1) 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 opportunities 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 Declaration of his
innocence were still, as the Lord Advocate had remarked, 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 complexion.

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. Dexter had especially shown himself
to be a thorough good ally of my husband's. My heart warme