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TEI   PERNEO   H    ETWTES   RAE       AKDSNAINI
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By WILKIE COLLINS,
AUTHOR OF
"THE MOONSTONE," "ARMADALE," "THE WOMAN IN WHITE,"
"BASIL," "THE DEAD SECRET," "ANTONINA," &c.
WITH ILL US TRA TIONS.
NEW YORK:
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS,
FRANKLIN SQUARE.
I875.



5WILKIE COLLINS'S NOVELS.
IIARPER'S ILLUSTRATED LIBRARY EDITION.
ilmo, Cloth, $1 50 per Volume.
ARMA DALE.                  zMA AND WrFE.
BASIL.                       POOR MISS FINCII.
HIDE-AND-SEEK.               THE MOONSTONE.
THE NEW MAGDALEN.            THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
NO NAME.                     THE DEAD SECRET.
QUEEN OF HEARTS.             AFTER DARE, and Other Stories.
MY MISCELLANIES.             ANTONINA.
TIE LAW AND THE LADY.
PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK;



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THE LAW AND THE LADY.
PART I.
PARADISE LOST.
CHAPTER I.
THE BRIDE'S MISTAKE.
"FOR after this manner in the old time the holy women
also who trusted in God adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their own husbands; even as Sarah obeyed
Abraham, calling him lord; whose daughters ye are as long
as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement."
Concluding the Marriage Service of the Church of England
in those well-known words, my uncle Starkweather shut up
his book, and looked at me across the altar rails with a hearty
expression of interest on his broad, red face. At the same time
my aunt, Mrs. Starkweather, standing by my side, tapped
me smartly on the shoulder, and said,
"Valeria, you are married!"
Where were my thoughts? What had become of my attention? I was too bewildered to know. I started and
looked at my new husband. He seemed to be almost as
much bewildered as I was. The same thought had, as I believe, occurred to us both at the same moment. Was it really possible —in spite of his mother's opposition to our marriage-that we were Man and Wife? My aunt Starkweather
settled the question by a second tap on my shoulder.
"Take his arm!" she whispered, in the tone of a woman
who had lost all patience with me.
I took his arm.
"Follow your uncle."
A2



10             THE LAW AND THE LADY.
Holding fast by my husband's arm, I followed my uncle
and the curate who had assisted him at the marriage.
The two clergymen led us into the vestry. The church
was in one of the dreary quarters of London, situated between
the City and the West End; the day was dull; the atmosphere was heavy and damp. We were a melancholy little
wedding party, worthy of the dreary neighborhood and the
dull day. No relatives or friends of my husband's were
present; his family, as I have already hinted, disapproved of
his marriage. Except my uncle and my aunt, no other relations appeared on my side. I had lost both my parents, and
I had but few friends.  My dear father's faithful old clerk,
Benjamin, attended the wedding to " give me away," as the
phrase is. He had known me fiom a child, and, in my forlorn position, he was as good as a father to me.
The last ceremony left to be performed was, as usual, the
signing of the marriage register.  In the confusion of the
moment (and in the absence of any information to guide me)
I committed a mistake-ominous, in my aunt Starkweather's
opinion, of evil to come. I signed my married instead of my
maiden name.
"What!" cried my uncle, in his loudest and cheeriest
tones, "you have forgotten your own name already? Well,
well! let us hope you will never repent parting with it so
readily. Try again, Valeria-try again."
With trembling fingers I struck the pen through my first
effort, and wrote my maiden name, very badly indeed, as
follows:
When it came to my husband's turn I noticed, with surprise, that his hand trembled too, and that he produced a
very poor specimen of his customary signature:
My aunt, on being requested to sign, complied under protest. "A bad beginning!" she said, pointing to my first



THE LAW AND THE LADY.               11
unfortunate signature with the feather end of her pen. "I
hope, my dear, you may not live to regret it."
Even then, in the days of my ignorance and my innocence,
that curious outbreak of my aunt's superstition produced a
certain uneasy sensation in my mind. It was a consolation
Ato me to feel the reassuring pressure of my husband's hand.
It was an indescribable relief to hear my uncle's hearty voice
wishing me a happy life at parting. The good man had left
his north-country Vicarage (my home since the death of my
parents) expressly to read the service at my marriage; and
he and my aunt had arranged to return by the mid-day train.
He folded me in his great strong arms, and he gave me a
kiss which must certainly have been heard by the idlers waiting for the bride and bridegroom outside the church door.
"I wish you health and happiness, my love, with all my
heart. You are old enough to choose for yourself, and-no
offense, Mr. Woodville, you and I are new friends-and I
pray God, Valeria, it may turn out that you have chosen
well. Our house will be dreary enough without you; but I
don't complain, my dear. On the contrary, if this change in
your life makes you happier, I rejoice. Come, come! don't
cry, or you will set your aunt off-and it's no joke at her
time of life. Besides, crying will spoil your beauty. Dry
your eyes and look in the glass there, and you will see that
I am right. Good-by, child-and God bless you!"'
He tucked my aunt under his arm, and hurried out. My
heart sank a little, dearly as I loved my husband, when I
had seen the last of the true fiiend and protector of my maiden days.
The parting with old Benjamin came next. "I wish you
well, my dear; don't forget me," was all he said. But the
old days at home came back on me at those few words. Benjamin always dined with us on Sundays in my father's time,
and always brought some little present with him for his master's child. I was very near to "spoiling my beauty" (as
my uncle had put it) when I- offered the old man my cheek
to kiss, and heard him sigh to himself, as if he too were not
quite hopeful about my future life.
My husband's voice roused me, and turned my mind to
happier thoughts.
"Shall we go, Valeria?" he asked.
I stopped him on our way out to take advantage of my



12             THE LAW AND THE LADY.
uncle's advice; in other words, to see how I looked in the
glass over the vestry fire-place.
What does the glass show me?
The glass shows a tall and slender young woman of threeand-twenty years of age. Stie is not at all the sort of person
who attracts attention in the street, seeing that she fails to
exhibit the popular yellow hair and the popular painted
cheeks. Her hair is black; dressed, in these later days (as
it was dressed years since to please her father), in broad ripples drawn back from the forehead, and gathered into a simple knot behind (like the hair of the Venus de Medicis), so as
to show the neck beneath. Her complexion is pale: except
in moments of violent agitation there is no color to be seen
in her face. Her eyes are of so dark a blue that they are
generally mistaken for black. Her eyebrows are well enough
in form, but they are too dark and too strongly marked. Her
nose just inclines toward the aquiline bend, and is considered
a little too large by persons difficult to please in the matter
of noses. The mouth, her best feature, is very delicately
shaped, and is capable of presenting great varieties of expression. As to the face in general, it is too narrow and too
long at the lower part, too broad and too low in the higher
regions of the eyes and the head. The whole picture, as reflected in the glass, represents a woman of some elegance,
rather too pale, and rather too sedate and serious in her moments of silence and repose-in short, a person who fails to
strike the ordinary observer at first sight, but who gains in
general estimation on a second, and sometimes on a third
view. As for her dress, it studiously conceals, instead of
proclaiming, that she has been married that morning. She
wears a gray cashmere tunic trimmed with gray silk, and
having a skirt of the same material and color beneath it.
On her head is a bonnet to match, relieved by a quilling of
white muslin, with one deep red rose, as a morsel of positive
color, to complete the effect of the whole dress.
Have I succeeded or failed in describing the picture of
myself which I see in the glass? It is not for me to say. I
have done my best to keep clear of the two vanities - the
vanity of depreciating and the vanity of praising my own
personal appearance. For the rest, well written or badly
written, thank Heaven it is done!



THE LAW AND THE LADY.                13
And whom do I see in the glass standing by my side?
I see a man who is not quite so tall as I am, and who has
the misfortune of looking older than his years. His forehead
is prematurely bald. His big chestnut-colored beard and his
long overhanging mustache are prematurely streaked with
gray. He has the color in the face which my face wants,
and the firmness in his figure which my figure wants. He
looks at me with the tenderest and gentlest eyes (of a light
brown) that I ever saw in the countenance of a man. His
smile is rare and sweet; his manner, perfectly quiet and retiring, has yet a latent persuasiveness in it which is (to women) irresistibly winning. He just halts a little in his walk,
from the effect of an injury received in past years, when he
was a soldier serving in India, and he carries a thick bamboo
cane, with a curious crutch handle (an old favorite), to help
himself along whenever he gets on his feet, in doors or out.
With this one little drawback (if it is a drawback), there is
iothing infirm or old or awkward about him; his slight limp
when he walks has (perhaps to my partial eyes) a certain
quaint grace of its own, which is pleasanter to see than the
unrestrained activity of other men. And last and best of all,
I love him! I love him! I love him! And there is an end
of my portrait of my husband on our wedding-day.
The glass has told me all I want to know. We leave the
vestry at last.
The sky, cloudy since the morning, has darkened while we
have been in the church, and the rain is beginning to fall
heavily. The idlers outside stare at us grimly under their
umbrellas as we pass through their ranks and hasten into our
carriage. No cheering; no sunshine; no flowers strewn in
our path; no grand breakfast; no genial speeches; no bridemaids; no father's or mother's blessing. A dreary wedding
-there is no denying it-and (if Aunt Starkweather is right)
a bad beginning as well!
A coupe has been reserved for us at the railway station.
The attentive porter, on the lookout for his fee, pulls down
the blinds over the side windows of the carriage, and shuts
out all prying eyes in that way. After what seems to be an
interminable delay the train starts. My husband winds his
arm round me. "At last!" he whispers, with love in his eyes
that no words can utter, and presses me to him gently.
My arm steals round his neck; my eyes answer his eyes.



14             THE LAW AND THE LADY.
Our lips meet in the first long, lingering kiss of our married
life.
Oh, what recollections of that journey rise in me as I write!
Let me dry my eyes, and shut up my paper for the day.
CHAPTER II.
THE BRIDE'S THOUGHTS.
WVE had been traveling for a little more than an hour
when a change passed insensibly over us both.
Still sitting close together, with my hand in his, with my
head on his shoulder, little by little we fell insensibly into silence. Had we already exhausted the narrow yet eloquent
vocabulary of love? Or had we determined by unexpressed
consent, after enjoying the luxury of passion that speaks, to
try the deeper and finer rapture of passion that thinks? I
can hardly determine; I only know that a time came when,
under some strange influence, our lips were closed toward
each other. We traveled along, each of us absorbed in our
own reverie. Was he thinking exclusively'of me-as I was
thinking exclusively of him? Before the journey's end I had
my doubts; at a little later time I knew for certain that his
thoughts, wandering far away from his young wife, were all
turned inward on his own unhappy self.
For me the secret pleasure of filling my mind with him,
while I felt him by my side, was a luxury in itself.
I pictured in my thoughts our first meeting in the neighborhood of my uncle's house.
Our famous north-country trout stream wound its flashingg
and foaming way through a ravine in the rocky moor-land.
It was a windy, shadowy evening. A heavily clouded sunset
lay low and red in the west. A solitary angler stood casting his fly at a turn in the stream where the backwater lay
still and deep under an overhanging bank. A girl (myself)
standing on the bank, invisible to the fisherman beneath,
waited eagerly to see the trout rise.
The moment came; the fish took the fly.
Sometimes on the little level strip of sand at the foot of
the bank, sometimes (when the stream turned again) in the
shallower water rushing over its rocky bed, the angler fol



THE LAW AND THE LADY.               15
lowed the captured trout, now letting the line run out, and
now winding it in again, in the difficult and delicate process
of "playing" the fish. Along the bank I followed to watch
the contest of skill and cunning between the man and the
trout. I had lived long enough with my uncle Starkweather to catch some of his enthusiasm for field sports, and to
learn something, especially, of the angler's art. Still following the stranger, with my eyes intently fixed on every movement of his rod and line, and with not so much as a chance
frargment of my attention to spare for the rough path along
which I was walking, I stepped by chance on the loose overhanging earth at the edge of the bank, and fell into the stream
in an instant.
The distance was trifling, the water was shallow, the bed
of the river was (fortunately for me) of sand. Beyond the
fii(ght and the wetting I had nothing to complain of. In a
few moments I was out of the water and up again, very much
ashamed of myself, on the firm ground. Short as the interval was, it proved long enough to favor the escape of the
fish. The angler had heard my first instinctive cry of alarm,
had turned, and had thrown aside his rod to help me. We
confionted each other for the first time, I on the bank and he
in the shallow water below. Our eyes encountered, and I
verily believe our hearts encountered at the same moment.
This I know for certain, we forgot our breeding as lady and
gentleman: we looked at each other in barbarous silence.
I was the first to recover myself. What did I say to him?
I said something about my not being hurt, and then something more, urging him to run back and try if he might not
yet recover the fish.
He went back unwillingly. He returned to me-of course
without the fish. Knowing how bitterly disappointed my
uncle would have been in his place, I apologized very earnestly. In my eagerness to make atonement, I even offered
to show him a spot where he might try again, lower down
the stream.
He would not hear of it; he entreated me to go home and
change my wet dress. I cared nothing for the wetting, but
I obeyed him without knowing why.
He walked with me. My way back to the Vicarage was
his way back to the inn. He had come to our parts, he told
me, for the quiet and retirement as much as for the fishing.



THE LAW AND THE LADY.               17
trouble in my face. How often he had read my happiness
there in the earlier days of our love!
" You bring bad news, my angel," he said, lifting my hair
tenderly fiom my forehead as he spoke. "I see the lines
here which tell me of anxiety and distress. I almost wish I
loved you less dearly, Valeria."
" Why?"
"I might give you back your fireedom. I have only to leave
this place, and your uncle would be satisfied, and you would
be relieved from all the cares that are pressing on you now."
"Don't speak of it, Eustace! If you want me to forget
my cares, say you love me more dearly than ever."
He said it in a kiss. We had a moment of exquisite forgetfulness of the hard ways of life —a moment of delicious
absorption in each other. I came back to realities fortified
and composed, rewarded for all that I had gone through,
ready to go through it all over again for another kiss.
Only give a woman love, and there is nothing she will not
venture, suffer, and do.
"No, they have done with objecting. They have remembered at last that I am of age, and that I can choose for myself. They have been pleading with me, Eustace, to give
you up. My aunt, whom I thought rather a hard woman,
has been crying-for the first time in my experience of her.
My uncle, always kind and good to me, has been kinder and
better than ever. He has told me that if I persist in becoming your wife, I shall not be deserted on my weddingday. Wherever we may marry, he will be there to read the
service, and my aunt will go to the church with me. But he
entreats me to consider seriously what I am doing-to consent to a separation fiom you for a time —to consult other
people on my position toward you, if I am not satisfied with
his opinion. Oh, my darling, they are as anxious to part us
as if you were the worst instead of the best of men!"
"Has any thing happened since yesterday to increase their
distrust of me?" he asked.
" Yes."
"What is it?"
"You remember referring my uncle to a friend of yours
and of his?"
"Yes. To Major Fitz-David."
"My uncle has written to Major Fitz-David."



18             THE LAW AND THE LADY.
" Why?"
He pronounced that one word in a tone so utterly unlike
his natural tone that his voice sounded quite strange to me.
" You won't be angry, Eustace, if I tell you?" I said. " My
uncle, as I understood him, had several motives for writing
to the major. (ne of them was to inquire if he knew your
mother's address."
Eustace suddenly stood still.
I paused at the same moment, feeling that I could venture
no farther without the risk of offending him.
To speak the truth, his conduct, when he first mentioned
our engagement to my uncle, had been (so far as appearances
went) a little flighty and strange. The vicar had naturally
questioned him about his family. He had answered that his
father was dead; and he had consented, though not very
readily, to announce his contemplated marriage to his mother.
Informing us that she too lived in the country, he had gone
to see her, without more particularly mentioning her address.
In two days he had returned to the Vicarage with a very
startling message. His mother intended no disrespect to me
or my relatives, but she disapproved so absolutely of her
son's marriage that she (and the members of her family, who
all agreed with her) would refuse to be present at the ceremony, if Mr. Woodville persisted in keeping his engagement
with Dr. Starkweather's niece. Being asked to explain this
extraordinary communication, Eustace had told us that his
mother and his sisters were bent on his marrying another
lady, and that they were bitterly mortified and disappointed
by his choosing a stranger to the family. This explanation
iwas enough for me; it implied, so far as I was concerned, a
compliment to my superior influence over Eustace, which a
woman always receives with pleasure. But it failed to satisfy my uncle and my aunt. The vicar expressed to Mr.
Woodville a wish to write to his mother, or to see her, on
the subject of her strange message. Eustace obstinately declined to mention his mother's address, on the ground that
the vicar's interference would be utterly useless. My uncle
at once drew the conclusion that the mystery about the address indicated something wrong. He refused to favor Mr.
Woodville's renewed proposal for my hand, and he wrote the
same day to make inquiries of Mr. Woodville's reference and
of his own friend Major Fitz-David.



THE LAW AND THE LADY.               19
Under such circumstances as these, to speak of my uncle's
motives was to venture on very delicate ground. Eustace
relieved me from further embarrassment by asking a question
to which I could easily reply.
"Has your uncle received any answer from Major FitzDavid?" he inquired.
"Yes."
"Were you allowed to read it?" His voice sank as he
said those words; his face betrayed a sudden anxiety which
it pained me to see.
"I have got the answer with me to show you," I said.
He almost snatched the letter out of my hand; he turned
his back on me to read it by the light of the moon. The
letter was short enough to be soon read. I could have repeated it at the time. I can repeat it now.
" DEAR VICAR, —Mr. Eustace Woodville is quite correct in
stating to you that he is a gentleman by birth and position,
and that he inherits (under his deceased father's will) an independent fortune of two thousand a year.
"Always yours,        LAWRENCE FITZ-DAVID."
"Can any body wish for a plainer answer than that?"
Eustace asked, handing the letter back to mne.
"If I had written for information about you," I answered,
"it would have been plain enough for me."
" Is it not plain enough for your uncle?"
" No."
"What does he say?"
" Why need you care to know, my darling?"
"I want to know, Valeria. There must be no secret between us in this matter. Did your uncle say any thing
when he showed you the major's letter?"
" Yes."
" What was it?"
"My uncle told me that his letter of inquiry filled three
pages, and he bade me observe that the major's answer contained one sentence only. He said,'I volunteered to go to
Major Fitz-David and talk the matter over. You see he
takes no notice of my proposal. I asked him for the address
of Mr. Woodville's mother. He passes over my request, as
he has passed over my proposal-he studiously confines him



20             THE LAW AND THE LADY.
self to the shortest possible statement of bare facts. Use
your own common-sense, Valeria. Isn't this rudeness rather
remarkable on the part of a man who is a gentleman by birth
and breeding, and who is also a friend of mine?'"
Eustace stopped me there.
"Did you answer your uncle's question?" he asked.
" No," I replied.. "I only said that I did not understand
the major's conduct."
"And what did your uncle say next? If you love me,
Valeria, tell me the truth."
"He used very strong language, Eustace. Hle is an old
man; you must not be offended with him."
"I am not offended. What did he say?"
"He said,' Mark my words! There is something under
the surface in conlnection with Mr. Woodville, or with his
family, to which Major Fitz-David is not at liberty to allude.
Properly interpreted, Valeria, that letter is a warning. Show
it to Mr. Woodville, and tell him (if you like) what I have
just told you-"'
Eustace stopped me again.
"You are sure your uncle said those words?" he asked,
scanning my face attentively in the moonlight.
"Quite sure. But I don't say what my uncle says. Pray
don't think that!"
He suddenly pressed me to his bosom, and fixed his eyes
on mine. His look frightened me.
~" Good-by, Valeria!" he said. " Try and think kindly of
me, my darling, when you are married to some happier man."
He attempted to leave me. I clung to him in an agony
of terror that shook me firom head to foot.
" What do you mean?.9 I asked, as soon as I could speak.
"I am yours and yours only. What have I said, what have
I done, to deserve those dreadful words?"
"We must part, my angel," he answered, sadly. "The
fault is none of yours; the misfortune is all mine. My Valeria! how can you marry a man who is an object of suspicion to your nearest and dearest friends? I have led a
dreary life. I have never found in any other woman the
sympathy with me, the sweet comfort and companionship,
that I find in you. Oh, it is hard to lose you! it is hard to
go back again to my unfriended life! I must make the sacrifice, love, for your sake. I know no more why that letter



THE LAW AND THE LADY.               21
is what it is than you do. Will your uncle believe me? will
your friends believe me? One last kiss, Valeria! Forgive
me for having loved you-passionately, devotedly loved you.
Forgive me-and let me go!"
I held him desperately, recklessly. His eyes put me beside myself; his words filled me with a frenzy of despair.
" Go where you may," I said, "I go with you! Friendsreputation-I care nothing who I lose, or what I lose! Oh,
Eustace, I am only a woman-don't madden me! I can't
live without you. I must and will be your wife!"
Those wild words were all I could say before the misery
and madness in me forced their way outward in a burst of
sobs and tears.
He yielded. He soothed me with his charming voice; he
brought me back to myself with his tender caresses. He
called the bright heaven above us to witness that he devoted his whole life to me. He vowed-oh, in such solemn,
such eloquent words!-that his one thought, night and day,
should be to prove himself worthy of such love as mine.
And had he not nobly redeemed the pledge? Had not the
betrothal of tlat memorable night been followed by the betrothal at the altar, by the vows before God! Ah, what a,
life was before me! What more than mortal happiness was
mine!
Again I lifted my head from his bosom to taste the dear
delight of seeing him by my side —my life, my love, my husband, my own!
Hardly awakened yet from the absorbing memories of the
past to the sweet realities of the present, I let my cheek
touch his cheek, I whispered to him softly, " Oh, how I love
you! how I love you!"
The next instant I started back from him. My heart stood
still. I put my hand up to my face. What did I feel on my
cheek? (Ihad not been weeping-I was too happy.) What
did-I feel on my cheek? A tear!
His face was still averted from me. I turned it toward
me, with my own hands, by main force.
I looked at him-and saw my husband, on our weddingday, with his eyes full of tears.



22             THE LAW AND THE LADY.
CHAPTER III.
RAMSGATE SANDS.
EUSTACE succeeded in quieting my alarm. But I can hardly say that he succeeded in satisfying my mind as well.
He had been thinking, he told me, of the contrast between
his past and his present life.  Bitter remembrance of the
years that had gone had risen in his memory, and had filled
him with melancholy misgivings of his capacity to make my
life with him a happy one. He had asked himself if he had
not met me too late-if he were not already a man soured
and broken by the disappointments and disenchantments of
the past?  Doubts such as these, weighing more and more
heavily on his mind, had filled his eyes with the tears which
I had discovered-tears which he now entreated me, by my
love for him, to dismiss firom my memory forever.
I forgave him, comforted him, revived him; but there were
moments when the remenlbrance of what I had seen troubled
me in secret, and when I asked myself if I really possessed
my husband's full confidence as he possessed mine.
We left the train at Ramsgate.
The favorite watering-place was empty; the season was
just over. Our arrangements for the wedding tour included
a cruise to the Mediterranean in a yacht lent to Eustace by
a friend. We were both fond of the sea, and we were equally desirous, considering the circumstances under which we
had married, of escaping the notice of friends and acquaintances.'With this object in view, having celebrated our marriage privately in London, we had decided on instructing the
sailing-master of the yacht to join us at Ramsgate. At this
port (when the season for'visitors was at an end) we could
embark far more privately than at the popular yachting stations situated in the Isle of Wight.
Three days passed-days of delicious solitude, of exquisite
happiness, never to be forgotten, never to be lived over again,
to the end of our lives!
Early on the morning of the fourth day, just before sunrise, a trifling incident happened, which was noticeable, nev



THE LAW AND THE LADY.                23
ertheless, as being strange to me in my experience of myself.
I awoke, suddenly and unaccountably, from a deep and
dreamless sleep with an all-pervading sensation of nervous
uneasiness which I had never felt before. In the old days at
the Vicarage my capacity as a sound sleeper had been the
subject of many a little harmless joke.  From the moment
when my head was on the pillow I had never known what it
was to awake until the maid knocked at my door. At all seasons and times the long and uninterrupted repose of a child
was the repose that I enjoyed.
And now I had awakened, without any assignable cause,
hours before my usual time.  I tried to compose myself to
sleep again. The effort was useless. Such a restlessness possessed me that I was not even able to lie still in the bed.
My husband was sleeping soundly by my side. In the fear
of disturbing him I rose, and put on my dressing-gown and
slippers.
I went to the window. The sun was just rising over the
calm gray sea. For a while the majestic spectacle before me
exercised a tranquilizing influence on the irritable condition
of my nerves. But ere long the old restlessness returned
upon me. I walked slowly to and fio in the room, until I
was weary of the monotony of the exercise. I took up a
book, and laid it aside again. My attention wandered; the
author was powerless to recall it.  I got on my feet once
more, and looked at Eustace, and admired him and loved him
in his tranquil sleep. I went back to the window, and wearied of the beautiful morning. I sat down before the glass
and looked at myself. How haggard and worn I was already, through awaking before my usual time! I rose again,
not knowing what to do next. The confinement to the four
walls of the room began to be intolerable to me. I opened
the door that led into my husband's dressing-room, and entered it, to try if the change would relieve me.
The first object that I noticed was his dressing-case, open
on the toilet-table.
I took out the bottles and pots and brushes and combs,
the knives and scissors in one compartment, the writing materials in another. I smelt the perfumes and pomatums; I
busily cleaned and dusted the bottles with my handkerchief
as I took them out. Little by little I completely emptied



24             THE LAW AND THE LADY.
the dressing-case. It was lined with blue velvet. In one
corner I noticed a tiny slip of loose blue silk. Taking it between my finger and thumb, and drawing it upward, I discovered that there was a false bottom to the case, forming a
secret compartment for letters and papers. In my strange
condition-capricious, idle, inquisitive-it was an amusement
to me to take out the papers, just as I had taken out every
thing else.
I found some receipted bills, Which failed to interest me;
some letters, which it is needless to say I laid aside after
only looking at the addresses; and, under all, a photograph,
face downward, with writing on the back of it. I looked at
the writing, and saw these words:
"To my dear son, Eustace."
His mother! the woman who had so obstinately and mercilessly opposed herself to our marriage!
I eagerly turned the photograph, expecting to see a woman with a stern, ill-tempered, forbidding countenance. To
my surprise, the face showed the remains of great beauty;
the expression, though remarkably firm, was yet winning,
tender, and kind. The gray hair was arranged in rows of
little quaint old-fashioned curls on either side of the head,
under a plain lace cap. At one corner of the mouth there
was a mark, apparently a mole, which added to the characteristic peculiarity of the face. I looked and looked, fixing
the portrait thoroughly in my mind. This woman, who had
almost insulted me and my relatives, was, beyond all doubt
or dispute, so far as appearances went, a person possessing
unusual attractions-a person whom it would be a pleasure
and a privilege to know.
I fell into deep thought. The discovery of the photograph
quieted me as nothing had quieted me yet.
The striking of a clock down stairs in the hall warned me
of the flight of time. I carefully put back all the objects in
the dressing-case (beginning with the photograph) exactly
as I had found them, and returned to the bedroom. As I
looked at my husband, still sleeping peacefully, the question
forced itself into my mind, What had made that genial, gentle mother of his so sternly bent on parting us? so harshly
and pitilessly resolute in asserting her disapproval-of our
marriage?
Could I put my question openly to Eustace when he awoke?



THE LAW AND THE LADY.               25
No; I was afraid to venture that length. It had been tacitly understood between us that we were not to speak of his
mother-and, besides, he micht be angry if he knew that I
had opened the private compartment of his dressing-case.
After breakfast that morning we had news at last of the
yacht. The vessel'was safely moored in the inner harbor,
and the sailing-master was waiting to receive my husband's
orders on board.
Eustace hesitated at asking me to accompany him to the
yacht. It would be necessary for him to examine the inventory of the vessel, and to decide questions, not very interesting to a woman, relating to charts and barometers, provisions and water. He asked me if I would wait for his retuirn.
The day was enticingly beautiful, and the tide was on the
ebb. I pleaded for a walk on the sands; and the landlady
at our lodgings, who happened to be in the room at the time,
volunteered to accompany me and take care of me. It was
agreed that we should walk as far as we felt inclined in the
direction of Broadstairs, and that Eustace should follow and
meet us on the sands, after having completed his arrangements on board the yacht.
In half an hour more the landlady and I were out on the
beach.
The scene on that fine autumn morning was nothing less
than enchanting. The brisk breeze, the brilliant sky, the
flashing blue sea, the sun-bright cliffs and the tawny sands
at their feet, the gliding procession of ships on the great marine highway of the English Channel-it was all so exhilarating, it was all so delightful, that I really believe if I had been
by myselfI could have danced for joy like a child. The one
drawback to my happiness was the landlady's untiring tongue.
She was a forward, good-natured, empty-headed woman, who
persisted in talking, whether I listened or not, and who had
a habit of perpetually addressing me as " Mrs. Woodville,"
which I thought a little overfamiliar as an assertion of equality from a person in her position to a person in mine.
We had been out, I should think, more than half an hour,
when we overtook a lady walking before us on the beach.'
Just as we were about to pass the stranger she took her
handkerchief from her pocket, and accidentally drew out
with it a letter, which fell unnoticed by her, on the sand.
B



26             THE LAWV AND THE LADY.
I was nearest to the letter, and I picked it up and offered it
to the lady.
The instant she turned to thank me, I stood rooted to the
spot. There was the original of the photographic portrait in
the dressing-case! there was my husband's mother, standing
face to face with me! I recognized the quaint little gray
curls, the gentle, genial expression, the mole at the corner of
the mouth. No mistake was possible. His mother herself!
The old lady, naturally enough, mistook my confusion for
shyness. With perfect tact and kindness she entered into
conversation with me. In another minute I was walking
side by side with the woman who had sternly repudiated me
as a member of her family; feeling, I own, terribly discomposed, and not knowing in the least whether I ought or ought
not to assume the responsibility, in my husband's absence,
of telling her who I was.
In another minute my familiar landlady, walking on the
other side, of my mother-in-law, decided the question for me.
I happened to say that I supposed we must by that time be
near the end of our walk-the little watering-place called
Broadstairs. "Oh no, Mrs.Woodville!" cried the irrepressible woman, calling me by my name, as usual; " nothing like
so near as you think!"
I looked with a beating heart at the old lady.
To my unutterable amazement, not the faintest gleam of
recognition appeared in her face. Old Mrs.Woodville went
on talking to young Mrs. Woodville just as composedly as if
she had never heard her own name before in her life!
My face and manner must have betrayed something of the
agitation that I was suffering. Happening to look at me at
the end of her next sentence, the old lady started, and said,
in her kindly way,
" I am afraid you have overexerted yourself. You are very
pale-you are looking quite exhausted. Come and sit down
here; let me lend you my smelling-bottle."
I followed her, quite helplessly, to the base of the cliff.
Some fallen fragments of chalk offered us a seat. I vaguely
heard the voluble landlady's expressions of sympathy and
regret; I mechanically took the smelling-bottle which my
husband's mother offered to me, after hearing my name, as
an act of kindness to a stranger.
If I had only had myself to think of, I believe I should



THE LAW AND THE LADY.               2 7
have provoked an explanation on the spot. But I had Eustace to think of. I was entirely ignorant of the relations,
hostile or fiiendly, which existed between his mother and
himself. What could I do?
In the mean time the old lady was still speaking to me
with the most considerate sympathy. She too was fatigued,
she said. She had passed a weary night at the bedside of a
near relative staying at Ramsgate. Only the day before she
had received a telegram announcing that one of her sisters
was seriously ill. She was herself, thank God, still active and
strong, and she had thought it her duty to start at once for
Ramsgate. Toward the morning the state of the patient had
improved. "The doctor assures me, ma'am, that there is no
immediate danger; and I thought it might revive me, after my
long night at the bedside, if I took a little walk on the beach."
I heard the words —I understood what they meant-but I
was still too bewildered and too intimidated by my extraordinary position to be able to continue the conversation. The
landlady had a sensible suggestion to make - the landlady
was the next person who spoke.
"Here is a gentleman coming," she said to me, pointing
in the direction of Ramsgate. "You can never walk back.
Shall we ask him to send a chaise from Broadstairs to the
gap in the cliff?"
The gentleman advanced a little nearer.
The landlady and I recognized him at the same moment.
It was Eustace coming to meet us, as we had arranged. The
irrepressible landlady gave the freest expression to her feelings.' " Oh, Mrs.Woodville, ain't it lucky? here is Mr.Woodville himself."
Once more I looked at my mother-in-law. Once more the
name failed to produce the slightest effect on her. Her sight
was not so keen as ours; she had not recognized her son yet.
Ie had young eyes like us, and he recognized his mother.
For a moment he stopped like a man thunderstruck. Then
he came on-his ruddy face white with suppressed emotion,
his eyes fixed on his mother.
" You here!" he said to her.
" How do you do, Eustace?" she quietly rejoined. " Have
you heard of your aunt's illness too? Did you know she was
staying at Ramsgate?"
He made no answer. The landlady, drawing the inevita



28             THE LAW AND THE LADY.
ble inference fiom the words that she had just heard, looked
from me to my mother-in-law in a state of amazement, which
paralyzed even her tongue. I waited with my eyes on my
husband, to see what he would do. If he had delayed acknowledging me another moment, the whole future course
of my life might have been altered —I should have despised
him.
He did not delay. He came to my side and took my hand.
" Do you know who this is?" he said to his mother.
She answered, looking at me with a courteous bend of her
head:
"A lady I met on the beach, Eustace, who kindly restored
to me a letter that I dropped. I think I heard the name"
(she turned to the landlady): "Mrs.Woodville, was it not?"
My husband's fingers unconsciously closed on my hand
with a grasp that hurt me. He set his mother right, it is
only just to say, without one cowardly moment of hesitation.
"Mother," he said to her, very quietly, "this lady is my
wife."
She had hitherto kept her seat. She now rose slowly and
faced her son in silence. The first expression of surprise
passed from her face. It was succeeded by the most terrible
look of mingled indignation and contempt that I ever saw in
a woman's eyes.
"I pity your wife," she said.
With those words and no more, lifting her hand she waved
him back from her, and went on her way again, as we had
first found her, alone.
CHAPTER IV.
ON THE WAY HO!ME.
LEFT by ourselves, there was a moment of silence among
us. Eustace spoke first.
"Are you able to walk back?" he said to me. "Or shall
we go on to Broadstairs, and return to Ramsgate by the railway?"
He put those questions as composedly, so far as his manner
was concerned, as if nothing remarkable had happened. But
his eyes and his lips betrayed him. They told me that he



THE LAW AND THE LADY.               29
was suffering keenly in secret. The extraordinary scene that
had just passed, far fiom depriving me of the last remains of
my courage, had stlrung  up my nerves and restored my selfpossession. I must have been more or less than woman if
my self-respect had not been wounded, if my curiosity had
not been wrought to the highest pitch, by the extraordinary
conduct of my husband's mother when Eustace presented me
to her. What was the secret of her despising him, and pitying me? Where was the explanation of her incomprehensible apathy when my name was twice pronounced in her hearing? Why had she left us, as if the bare idea of remaining
in our company was abhllorrent to her? The foremost interest of my life was now the interest of penetrating these mysteries. Walk? I was in such a fever of expectation that
I felt as if I could have walked to the world's end, if I
could only keep my husband by my side, and question him
on the way.
" I am quite recovered," I said. "Let us go back, as we
came, on foot."
Eustace glanced at the landlady. The landlady understood him.
" I won't intrude my company on you, sir," she said, sharply. " I have some business to do at Broadstairs, and, now I
am so near, I may as well go on. Good-morning, MIhs.Woodville."
She laid a marked emphasis on my name, and she added
one significant look at parting, which (in the preoccupied
state of my mind at that moment) I entirely failed to comprehend. There was neither time nor opportunity to ask her
what she meant. With a stiff little bow, addressed to Eustace, she left us as his mother had left us, taking the way to
Broadstairs, and walking rapidly.
At last we were alone.
I lost no time in beginning my inquiries; I wasted no
words in prefatory phrases. In the plainest terms I put the
question to him:
"What does your mother's conduct mean?"
Instead of answering, he burst into a fit of laughter —loud,
coarse, hard laughter, so utterly unlike any sound I had ever
yet heard issue from his lips, so strangely and shockingly foreign to his character as I understood it, that I stood still on
the sands, and openly remonstrated with him.



30             THE LAW AND THE LADY.
"Eustace! you are not like yourself," I said. "You almost frighten me."
He took no notice. He seemed to be pursuing some pleasant train of thought just started in his mind.
" So like my mother!" he exclaimed, with the air of a man
who felt irresistibly diverted by some humorous idea of his
own. "Tell me all about it,Valeria!"
"Tell you!" I repeated. "After what has happened, surely it is your duty to enlighten me."
" You don't see the joke," he said.
" I not only fail to see the joke," I rejoined, "I see something in your mother's language and your mother's behavior
which justifies me in asking you for a serious explanation."
"My dear Valeria, if you understood my mother as well
as I do, a serious explanation of her conduct would be the
last thing in the world that you would expect from me. The
idea of taking my mother seriously!" He burst out laughing again. "My darling, you don't know how you amuse
me."
It was all forced; it was all unnatural. He, the most delicate, the most refined of men -a gentleman in the highest
sense of the word-was coarse and loud and vulgar! My
heart sank under a sudden sense of misgiving which, with all
my love for him, it was impossible to resist. In unutterable
distress and alarm I asked myself, " Is my husband beginning to deceive me? is he acting a part, and acting it badly,
before we have been married a week?"
I set myself to win his confidence in a new way. He was
evidently determined to force his own point of view on me.
I determined, on my side, to accept his point of view.
"You tell me I don't understand your mother," I said,
gently. "Will you help me to understand her?"
" It is not easy to help you to understand a woman who
doesn't understand herself," he answered. " But I will try.
The key to my poor dear mother's character is, in one word
— Eccentricity."
If he had picked out the most inappropriate word in the
whole dictionary to describe the lady whom I had met on
the beach, " Eccentricity" would have been that word. A
child who had seen what I saw, who had heard what I heard,
would have discovered that he was trifling - grossly, recklessly trifling —with the truth.



TIlE LAW AND THE LADY.               31
"Bear in mind what I have said," he proceeded; "and if
you want to understand my mother, do what I asked you to
do a minute since —tell me all about it. How came you to
speak to her, to begin with?"
"Your mother told you, Eustace. I was walking just behind her, when she dropped a letter by accident-"
"No accident," he interposed. "The letter was dropped
on purpose."
"Impossible!" I exclaimed. "Why should your mother
drop the letter on purpose?"
" Use the key to her character, my dear. Eccentricity!
My mother's odd way of making acquaintance with you."
"MIaking acquaintance with me? I have just told you
that I was walking behind her. She could not have known
of the existence of such a person as myself until I spoke to
her first."
" So you supposc,Valeria."
" I am certain of it."
" Pardon me-you don't know my mother as I do."
I began to lose all patience with him.
" Do you mean to tell me," I said, " that your mother was
out on the sands to-day for the express purpose of making
acquaintance with Mie?"
" I have not the slightest doubt of it," he answered, coolly.
" Why, she didn't even recognize my name!" I burst out.
" Twice over the landlady called me Mrs. Woodville in your
mother's hearing, and twice over, I declare to you on my
word of honor, it failed to produce the slightest impression
on her. She looked and acted as if she had never heard her
own name before in her life."
"'Acted' is the right word," he said, just as composedly
as before. F' The women on the stage are not the only women who can act.) My mother's object was to make herself
thoroughly acquainted with you, and to throw you off your
guard by speaking in the character of a stranger. It is exactly like her to take that roundabout way of satisfying her
curiosity about a daughter-in-law she disapproves of. If I
had not joined you when I did, you would have been examined and cross-examined about yourself and about me, and
you would innocently have answered under the impression
that you were speaking to a chance acquaintance. There is
my mother all over! She is your enemy, remember-not



32             THE LAW AND THE LADY.
your friend. She is not in search of your merits, but of your
faults. And you wonder why no impression was produced
on her when she heard you addressed by your name! Poor
innocent! I can tell you this — you only discovered my
mother in her own character when I put an end to the mystification by presenting you to each other. You saw how
angry she was, and now you know why."
I let him go on without saying a word. I listened-oh!
with such a heavy heart, with such a crushing sense of disenchantment and despair! The idol of my worship, the companion, guide, protector of my life - had he fallen so low?
could he stoop to such shameless prevarication as this?
Was there one word of truth in all that he had said to
me? Yes! If I had not discovered his mother's portrait,
it was certainly true that I should not have known, not even
have vaguely suspected, who she really was. Apart from.
this, the rest was lying, clumsy lying, which said one thing
at least for him, that he was not accustomed to falsehood
and deceit. Good IIeavens! if my husband was to be believed, his mother must have tracked us to London, tracked
us to the church, tracked us to the railway station, tracked
us to Ramsgate! To assert that she knew me by sight as
the wife of Eustace, and that she had waited on the sands
and dropped her letter for the express purpose of making acquaintance with me, was also to assert every one of these
monstrous probabilities to be facts that had actually happened!
I could say no more. I walked by his side in silence, feeling the miserable conviction that there was an abyss in the
shape of a family secret between my husband and ne. In
the spirit, if not in the body, we were separated, after a married life of barely four days.
"Valeria," he asked," have you nothing to say to me?"
"Nothing."
"Are you not satisfied with my explanation?"
I detected a slight tremor in his voice as he put that question. The tone was, for the first time since we had spoken
together, a tone that my experience associated with him in
certain moods of his which I had already learned to know
well. Among the hundred thousand mysterious influences
which a man exercises over a woman who loves him, I doubt
if there is any more irresistible to her than the influence of



THE LA&V AND THE LADY.             33
his voice. I am not one of those women who shed tears on
the smallest provocation: it is not in my temperament, I suppose. But when I heard that little natural change in his
tone my mind went back (I can't say why) to the happy
day when I first owned that I loved him. I burst out crying.
He suddenly stood still, and took me by the hand. He
tried to look at me.
I kept my head down and my eyes on the ground. I was
ashamed of my weakness and my want of spirit. I was determined not to look at him.
In the silence that followed he suddenly dropped on his
knees at my feet, with a cry of despair that cut through me
like a knife.
"Valeria! I am vile-I am false-I am unworthy of you.
Don't believe a word of what I have been saying-lies, lies,
cowardly, contemptible lies! You don't know what I have
gone through; you don't know how I have been tortured.
Oh, my darling, try not to despise me! I must have been
beside myself when I spoke to you as I did. You looked
hurt; you looked offended; I didn't know what to do. I
wanted to spare you even a moment's pain —I wanted to
hush it up, and have done with it. For God's sake don't
ask me to tell you any more! My love! my angel! it's
something between my mother and me; it's nothing that
need disturb you; it's nothing to any body now. I love you,
I adore you; my whole heart and soul are yours. Be satisfied with that. Forget what has happened. You shall never
see my mother again. We will leave this place to-morrow.
WVe will go away in the yacht. Does it matter where we
live, so long as we live for each other? Forgive and forget!
Oh,Valeria,Valeria, forgive and forget!"
Unutterable misery was in his face; unutterable misery
was in his voice. Remember this. And remember that I
loved him.
"It is easy to forgive," I said, sadly. "For your sake,
Eustace, I will try to forget."
I raised him gently as I spoke. He kissed my hands with
the air of a man who was too humble to venture on any
more familiar expression of his gratitude than that.  The
sense of embarrassment between us as we slowly walked on
again was so unendurable that I actually cast about in my
B2



34              THE LAW AND THE LADY.
mind for a subject of conversation, as if I had been in the
company of a stranger! In mercy to him, I asked him to tell
me about the yacht.
He seized on the subject as a drowning man seizes on the
hand that rescues him.
On that one poor little topic of the yacht he talked, talked,
talked, as if his life depended upon his not being silent for an
instant on the rest of the way back. To me it was dreadful
to hear him. I could estimate what he was suffering by the
violence which he-ordinarily a silc'nt and thoughtful manwas now doing to his true nature, and to the prejudices and
habits of his life. With the greatest difficulty I preserved
my self-control until we reached the door of our lodgings.
There I was obliged to plead fatigue, and ask him to let me
rest for a little while in the solitude of my own room.
" Shall we sail to-morrow?" he called after me suddenly,
as I ascended the stairs.
Sail with him to the Mediterranean the next day? Pass
weeks and weeks absolutely alone with him, in the narrow
limits of a vessel, with his horrible secret parting us in sympathy farther and farther from each other day by day? I
shuddered at the thought of it.
"To-morrow is rather a short notice," I said. "Will you
give me a little little longer time to prepare for the voyage?"
" Oh yes-take any time you like," lie answered, not (as I
thought) very willingly.  " While you are resting-there are
still one or two little things to be settled-I think I will go
back to the yacht. Is there any thing I can do for you, Valeria, before I go?"
"Nothing-thank you, Eustace."
He hastened away to the harbor. Was he afraid of his
own thoughts, if he were left by himself in the house. Was
the company of the sailing-master and the steward better
than no company at all?
It was useless to ask. What did I know about him or his
thoughts? I locked myself into my room.



THE LAW AND THE LADY.              35
CHAPTER V.
THE LANDLADY'S DISCOVERY.
I SAT down, and tried to compose my spirits. Now or never was the time to decide what it was my duty to my husband and my duty to myself to do next.
The effort was beyond me. Worn out in mind and body
alike, I was perfectly incapable of pursuing any regular train
of thought. I vaguely felt-if I left things as they werethat I could never hope to remove the shadow which now
rested on the married life that had begun so brightly. We
might live together, so as to save appearances. But to forget
what had happened, or to feel satisfied with my position, was
beyond the power of my will. M3y tranquillity as a woman
-perhaps my dearest interests as a wife-depended absolutely on penetrating the mystery of my mother-in-law's conduct,
and on discovering the true meaning of the wild words of penitence and self-reproach which my husband had addressed to
me on our way home.
So far I could advance toward realizing my position-and no
farther. When I asked myself what was to be done next, hopeless confusion, maddening doubt, filled my mind, and transformed me into the most listless and helpless of living women.
I gave up the struggle. In dull, stupid, obstinate despair,
I threw myself on my bed, and fell fiom sheer fatigue into a
broken, uneasy sleep.
I was awakened by a knock at the door of my room.
Was it my husband? I started to my feet as the idea occurred to me. Was some new trial of my patience and my
fortitude at hand? Half nervously, half irritably, I asked
who was there.
The landlady's voice answered me.
" Can I speak to you for a moment, if you please?"
I opened the door. There is no disguising it-though I
loved him so dearly, though I had left home and friends for
his sake —it was a relief to me, at that miserable time, to know
that Eustace had not returned to the house.
The landlady came in, and took a seat, without waiting to



THE LAW AND THE LADY.               37
"You?" I exclaimed. "What sacrifice?"
"What sacrifice?" repeated the landlady. "I have degraded myself as a gentlewoman. I have forfeited my own
self-respect." She paused for a moment, and suddenly seized
my hand in a perfect frenzy of friendship. "Oh, my poor
dear!" cried this intolerable person. "I have discovered every thing. A villain has deceived you. You are no more
married than I am!"
I snatched my hand out of hers, and rose angrily from my
chair.
"Are you mad?" I asked.
The landlady raised her eyes to the ceiling with the air of
a person who had deserved martyrdom, and who submitted
to it cheerfully.
"Yes," she said. "I begin to think I am mad-mad to
have devoted myself to an ungrateful woman, to a person
who doesn't appreciate a sisterly and Christian sacrifice of
self. Well, I won't do it again. Heaven forgive me-I
won't do it again!"
"Do what again?" I asked.
"Follow your mother-in-law," cried the landlady, suddenly
dropping the character of a martyr, and assuming the character of a vixen in its place. "I blush when I think of it. I
followed that most respectable person every step of the way
to her own door."
Thus far my pride had held me up. It sustained me no
longer. I dropped back again into my chair, in undisguised
dread of what was coming next.
"I gave you a look when I left you on the beach," pursued the landlady, growing louder and louder and redder and
redder as she went on. "A grateful woman would have understood that look. Never mind! I won't do it again. I
overtook your mother-in-law at the gap in the cliff. I followed her-oh, how I feel the disgrace of it now!-I followed
her to the station at Broadstairs. She went back by train to
Ramsgate. Iwent back by train to Ramsgate. She walked
to her lodgings. Iwalked to her lodgings. Behind her.
Like a dog. Oh, the disgrace of it! Providentially, as I
then thought-I don't know what to think of it now-the
landlord of the house happened to be a fiiend of mine, and
happened to be at home. We have no secrets fiom each
other where lodgers are concerned. I am in a position to



THE LAW AND THE LADY.              39
CHAPTER VI.
MY OWN DISCOVERY.
FORTUNATELY for me, the landlord did not open the door
when I rang. A stupid maid-of-all-work, who never thought
of asking me for my name, let me in. MIrs. Macallan was at
home, and had no visitors with her. Giving me this information, the maid led the way up stairs, and showed me into
the drawing-room without a word of announcement.
My mother-in-law was sitting alone, near a work-table,
knitting. The moment I appeared in the doorway she laid
aside her work, and, rising, signed to me with a commanding
gesture of her hand to let her speak first.
"I know what you have come here for," she said. "You
have come here to ask questions. Spare yourself, and spare
me. I warn you beforehand that I will not answer any questions relating to my son."
It was firmly, but not harshly said. I spoke firmly in my
turn.
"I have not come here, madam, to ask questions about
your son," I answered. " I have come, if you will excuse me,
to ask you a question about yourself."
She started, and looked at me keenly over her spectacles.
I had evidently taken her by surprise.
" What is the question?" she inquired.
" I now know for the first time, madam, that your name is
Macallan," I said. "Your son has married me under the
name of Woodville. The only honorable explanation of this
circumstance, so far as I know, is that my husband is your
son by a first marriage. The happiness of my life is at stake.
Will you kindly consider my position? Will you let me
ask you if you have been twice married, and if the name of
your first husband was Woodville?"
She considered a little before she replied.
"The question is a perfectly natural one in your position,"
she said. "But I think I had better not answer it."
"May I ask why?"
"Certainly. If I answered you, I should only lead to oth



40             TI-IE LAW AND THE LADY.
er questions, and I should be obliged to decline replying to
them. I am sorry to disappoirnt you. I repeat what I said
on the beach-I have no other feeling than a feeling of sympathy toward you. If you had consulted me before your
marriage, I should willingly have admitted you to my fullest
confidence. It is now too late. You are married. I recommend you to make the best of your position, and to rest satisfied with things as they are."
"Pardon me, madam," I remonstrated. "As things are,
I don't know that I am married. All I know, unless you enlighten me, is that your son has married me under a name
that is not his own. How can I be sure whether I am or am
not his lawful wife?"
"I believe there can be no doubt that you are lawfully
my son's wife,'" Mris. 3Iacallan answered. "At any rate it is
easy to take a legal opinion on the subject. If the opinion
is that you are not lawfully married, my son (whatever his
faults and failings may be) is a gentleman. He is incapable
of willfully deceiving a woman who loves and trusts him.
He will do you justice. On my side, I will do you justice too.
If the legal opinion is adverse to your rightful claims, I will
promise to answer any questions which you may choose to
put to me. As it is, I believe you to be lawfully my son's
wife; and I say again, make the best of your position. Be
satisfied with your husband's affectionate devotion to you.
If you value your peace of mind and the happiness of your
life to come, abstain from attempting to know more than you
know now."
She sat down again with the air of a woman who had said
her last word.
Further remonstrance would be useless; I could see it in
her face; I could hear it in her voice.  I turned round to
open the drawing-room door.
"You are hard on me, madam," I said at parting. "I am
at your mercy, and I must submit."
She suddenly looked up, and answered me with a flush on
her kind and handsome old face.
"As God is my witness, child, I pity you from the bottom
of my heart!"
After that extraordinary outburst of feeling, she took up
her work with one hand, and signed to me with the other to
leave her.



THE LAW AND THE LADY.               41
I bowed to her in silence, and went out.
I had entered the house far fiom feeling sure of the course
I ought to take in the future. I left the house positively resolved, come what might of it, to discover the secret which
the mother and son were hiding from me. As to the question of the name, I saw it now in the light in which I ought
to have seen it from the first. If Mrs. MIacallan had been
twice married (as I had rashly chosen to'suppose), she would
certainly have shown some signs of recognition when she
heard me addressed by her first husband's name. Where all
else was mystery, there was no mystery here. Whatever
his reasons might be, Eustace had assuredly married me under an assumed name.
Approaching the door of our lodgings, I saw my husband
walking  backward and forward before it, evidently waiting
for my return. If he asked me the question, I decided to tell
him fiankly where I had been, and what had passed between
his mother and myself.
He hurried to meet me with signs of disturbance in his face
and manner.
"I have a favor to ask of you,Valeria," he said. " Do you
mind returning with me to London by the next train?"
I looked at him. In the popular phrase, I could hardly believe my own ears.
"It's a matter of business," he went on, "of no interest to
any one but myself, and it requires my presence in London.
You don't wish to sail just yet, as I understand?  I can't
leave you here by yourself. Have you any objection to going to London for a day or two?"
I made no objection. I too was eager to go back.
In London I could obtain the legal opinion which would
tell me whether I were lawfully married to Eustace or not. In
London I should be within reach of the help and advice of
my father's faithful old clerk. I could confide in Benjamin as
I could confide in no one else. Dearly as I loved my uncle
Starkweather, I shrank from communicating with him in my
present need. His wife. had told me that I had made a bad
beginning when I signed the wrong name in the marriage reg.
ister. Shall I own it? My pride shrank fiom acknowledging, before the honeymoon was over, that his wife was right.
In two hours more we were on the railway again. Ah,



42             THE LAW AND THE LADY.
what a contrast that second journey presented to the first!
On our way to Ramsgate every body could see that we were
a newly wedded couple. On our way to London nobody
noticed us; nobody would have doubted that we had been
mnarried for years.
We went to a private hotel in the neighborhood of Portland Place.
After breakfast the next morning Eustace announced that
he must leave me to attend to his business. I had previously mentioned to him that I had some purchases to make in
London. He was quite willing to let me go out alone, on the
condition that I should take a carriage provided by the hotel.
My heart was heavy that morning: I felt the unacknowledged estrangement that had grown up between us very
keenly. MIy husband opened the door to go out, and came
back to kiss me before he left me by myself. That little
after-thought of tenderness touched me. Acting on the
impulse of the moment, I put my arm round his neck, and
held him to me gently.
"My darling," I said, "give me all your confidence. I know
that you love me. Show that you can trust me too."
He sighed bitterly, and drew back from me-in sorrow,
not in anger.
"I thought we had agreed, Valeria, not to return to that
subject again," he said. "You only distress yourself and distress me."
He left the room abruptly, as if he dare not trust himself to
say more. It is better not to dwell on what I felt after this
last repulse. I ordered the carriage at once. I was eager to
find a refuge from my own thoughts in movement and change.
I drove to the shops first, and made the purchases which I
had mentioned to Eustace by way of giving a reason for going out. Then I devoted myself to the object which I really
had at heart. I went to. old Benjamin's little villa, in the
by-ways of St. John's Wood.
As soon as he had got over the first surprise of seeing me,
he noticed that I looked pale and care-worn. I confessed at
once that I was in trouble. We sat down together by the
bright fireside in his little library (Benjamin, as far as his
means would allow, was a great collector of books), and there
I told my old fiiend, fiankly and truly, all that I have told
here.



44             THE LAWV AND THIE LADY.
I had but one answer to this. Life, on such conditions as
my good friend had just stated, would be simply unendurable
to me. Nothing could alter my resolution-for this plain
reason, that nothing could reconcile me to living with my
husband on the terms on which we were living now. It only
rested with Benjamin to say whether he would give a helping hand to his master's daughter or not.
The old man's answer was thoroughly characteristic of
him.
"Mention what you want of me, my dear," was all he
said.
We were then passing a street in the neighborhood of
Portman Square. I was on the point of speaking again,
when the words were suspended on my lips. I saw my husband.
He was just descending the steps of a house-as if leaving
it after a visit. His eyes were on the ground: he did not
look up when the carriage passed. As the servant closed
the door behind hirg, I noticed that the number of the house
was Sixteen. At the next corner I saw the name of the
street. It was Vivian Place.
"Do you happen to know who lives at Number Sixteen
Vivian Place?" I inquired of my companion.
Benjamin started. MIy question was certainly a strange
one, after what he had just said to me.
" No," he replied. " Why do you ask?"
"I have just seen Eustace leaving that house."
" Well, my dear, and what of that?"
"My mind is in a bad way, Benjamin. Every thing my
husband does that I don't understand rouses my suspicion
now."
Benjamin lifted his withered old hands, and let them drop
on his knees again in mute lamentation over me.
"I tell you again," I went on, " my life is unendurable to
me. I won't answer for what I may do if I am left much
longer to live in doubt of the one man on earth whom I
love. You have had experience of the world. Suppose you
were shut out from Eustace's confidence, as I am? Suppose
you were as fond of him as I am, and felt your position as
bitterly as I feel it-what would you do?"
The question was plain. Benjamin met it with a plain
answer.



THE LAW AND THE LADY.                45
"I think I should find my way, my dear, to some intimate
friend of your husband's," he said, " and make a few discreet
inquiries in that quarter first."
Some intimate fiiend of my husband's? I considered with
myself. There was but one firiend of his whom I knew ofmy uncle's correspondent, Major Fitz-David. My heart beat
fast as the name recurred to my memory. Suppose I followed Benjamin's advice? Suppose I applied to Major FitzDavid? Even if he, too, refused to answer my questions,
my position would not be more helpless than it was now.
I determined to make the attempt. The only difficulty in
the way, so far, was to discover the Major's address. I had
given back his letter to Doctor Starkweather, at my uncle's
own request. I remembered that the address from which
the Major wrote was somewhere in London-and I remembered no more.
"Thank you, old friend; you have given me an idea already," I said to Benjamin. "Have you got a Directory in
your house?"
" No, my dear," he rejoined, looking very much puzzled.
"But I can easily send out and borrow one."
We returned to the villa. The servant was sent at once
to the nearest stationer's to borrow a Directory. She returned with the book just as we sat down to dinner. Searching for the Major's name under the letter F, I was startled
by a new discovery.
"Benjamin!" I said. "This is a strange coincidence.
Look here!"
He looked where I pointed. Major Fitz-David's address
was Number Sixteen Vivian Place-the very house which I
had seen my husband leaving as we passed in the carriage!
CHAPTER VII.
ON THE WAY TO THE MAJOR.'YEs," said Benjamin. "It is a coincidence certainly.
Still-"
He stopped and looked at me. He seemed a little doubtful how I might receive what he had it in his mind to say
to me next.



46             THE LAW AND THE LADY.
"Go on," I said.
"Still, my dear, I see nothing suspicious in what has happened," he resumed. "To my mind it is quite natural that
your husband, being in London, should pay a visit to one of
his friends. And it's equally natural that we should pass
through Vivian Place on our way back here. This seems
to be the reasonable view. What do you say?"
"I have told you already that my mind is in a bad way
about Eustace," I answered. "I say there is some motive
at the bottom of his visit to Major Fitz-David. It is not an
ordinary call. I am firmly convinced it is not an ordinary
call!"
" Suppose we get on with our dinner?" said Benjamin, resignedly. "Here is a loin of mutton, my dear-an ordinary
loin of mutton. Is there any thing suspicious in that? Very
well, then. Show me you have confidence in the mutton;
please eat. There's the wine, again. No mystery,Valeria, in
that claret-I'll take my oath it's nothing but innocent juice
of the grape. If we can't believe in any thing else, let's
believe in juice of the grape. Your good health, my dear."
I adapted myself to the old man's genial humor as readily
as I could. We ate and we drank, and we talked of by-gone
days. For a little while I was almost happy in the company of my fatherly old fiiend. Why was I not old too?
Why had I not done with love, with its certain miseries, its
transient delights, its cruel losses, its bitterly doubtful gains?
The last autumn flowers in the window basked brightly in
the last of the autumn sunlight. Benjamin's little dog digested his dinner in perfect comfort on the hearth. The parrot in the next house screeched his vocal accomplishments
cheerfully. I don't doubt that it is a great privilege to be
a human being. But may it not be the happier destiny to
be an animal or a plant?
The brief respite was soon over; all my anxieties came
back. I was once more a doubting, discontented, depressed
creature when I rose to say good-by.
"Promise, my dear, you will do nothing rash," said Benjamin, as he opened the door for me.
" Is it rash to go to Maljor Fitz-David?" I asked.
"Yes-if you go by yourself. You don't know what sort
of man he is; you don't know how he may receive you. Let
me try first, and pave the way, as the saying is. Trust my



THE LAW AND THE LADY.               47
experience, my dear. In matters of this sort there is nothing like paving the way."
I considered a moment. It was due to my good fiiend to
consider before I said No.
Reflection decided me on taking the responsibility, whatever it might be, upon my own shoulders. Good or bad,
compassionate or cruel, the Major was a man. A woman's
influence was the safest influence to trust with him, where
the end to be gained was such an end as I had in view. It
was not easy to say this to Benjamin without the danger of
mortifying him. I made an appointment with the old man
to call on me the next morning at the hotel, and talk the
matter over again. Is it very disgraceful to me to add that
I privately determined (if the thing could be accomplished)
to see Major Fitz-David in the interval?
"Do nothing rash, my dear. In your own interests, do
nothing rash!"
Those were Benjamin's last words when we parted for the
day.
I found Eustace waiting for me in our sitting-room at the
hotel. His spirits seemed to have revived since I had seen
him last. He advanced to meet me cheerfully, with an open
sheet of paper in his hand.
"IMy business is settled, Valeria, sooner than I had expected," he began, gayly. "Are your purchases all completed, fair lady? Are you free too?"
I had learned already (God help me!) to distrust his fits
of gayety. I asked, cautiously,
"Do you mean free for to-day?"
" Free for to-day, and to-morrow, and next week, and next
month-and next year too, for all I know to the contrary,"
he answered, putting his arm boisterously round my waist.
"Look here!"
He lifted the open sheet of paper which I had noticed in
his hand, and held it for me to read. It was a telegram to
the sailing-master of the yacht, informing him that we had
arranged to return to Ramsgate that evening, and that we
should be ready to sail for the Mediterranean with the next
tide.
"I only waited for your return," said Eustace, "to send
the telegram to the office."



48             THE LAW AND THE LADY.
He crossed the room as he spoke to ring the bell. I stopped him.
"I am afraid I can't go to Ramsgate to-day," I said.
"Why not?" he asked, suddenly changing his tone, and
speaking sharply.
I dare say it will seem ridiculous to some people, but it is
really true that he shook my resolution to go to Major FitzDavid when he put his arm round me. Even a mere passing
caress from him stole away my heart, and softly tempted me
to yield. But the ominous alteration in his tone made another woman of me. I felt once more, and felt more strongly than ever, that in my critical position it was useless to
stand still, and worse than useless to driaw back.
", I am sorry to disappoint you," I answered. "It is impossible for me (as I told you at Ramsgate) to be ready to
sail at a moment's notice. I want time."
" What for?"
Not only his tone, but his look, when he put that second
question, jarred on every nerve in me. He roused in llmy
mind-I can't tell how or why-an angry sense of the indignity that he had put upon his wife in marrying her under
a false name. Fearing that I should answer rashly, that I
should say something which my better sense might regret,
if I spoke at that moment, I said nothing. Women alone can
estimate what it cost me to be silent. And men alone can
understand how irritating my silence must have been to my
husband.
" You want time?" he repeated. " I ask you again-what
for?"
My self-control, pushed to its extremest limits, failed me.
The rash reply flew out of my lips, like a bird set free from
a cage.
"I want time," I said, " to accustom myself to my right
name."
He suddenly stepped up;to me with a dark look.
" What do you mean by your'right name?"'
" Surely you know," I answered. " I once thought I was
Mrs.Woodville. I have now discovered that I am Mrs. Macallan."
He started back at the sound of his own name as if I had
struck him-he started back, and turned so deadly pale that
I feared he was going to drop at my feet in a swoon. Oh,



THE LAW AND THE LADY.              49
my tongue! my tongue! Why had I not controlled my
miserable, mischievous woman's tongue!
"I didn't mean to alarm you, Eustace," I said. "I spoke
at random. Pray forgive me."
He waved his hand impatiently, as if my penitent words
were tangible things-ruffling, worrying things, like flies in
summer-which he was putting away from him.
"What else have you discovered?" he asked, in low, stern
tones.
"Nothing, Eustace."
"Nothing?" He paused as he repeated the word, and
passed his hand over his forehead in a weary way. "Nothing, of course," he resumed, speaking to himself, "or she
would not be here." He paused once more, and looked at
me searchingly. " Don't say again what you said just now,"
lie went on. "For your own sake, Valeria, as well as for
mine." He dropped into the nearest chair, and said no
more.
I certainly heard the warning; but the only words which
really produced an impression on my mind were the words
preceding it, which he had spoken to himself. He had said:' Nothing, of course, or she woould not be here." If I had
found out some other truth besides the truth about the
name, would it have prevented me from ever returning to
my husband? Was that what he meant? Did the sort of
discovery that he contemplated mean something so dreadful
that it would have parted us at once and forever? I stood
by his chair in silence, and tried to find the answer to those
terrible questions in his face. It used to speak to me so eloquently when it spoke of his love. It told me nothing now.
He sat for some time without looking at me, lost in his
own thoughts. Then he rose on a sudden and took his hat.
"The friend who lent me the yacht is in town," he said.
"I suppose I had better see him, and say our plans are
changed."  He tore up the telegram  with an air of sullen
resignation as he spoke. "You are evidently determined
not to go to sea with me," he resumed. "We had better
give it up. I don't see what else is to be done. Do you?"
His tone was almost a tone of contempt. I was too depressed about myself, too alarmed about hi'n,, to resent it.
" Decide as you think best, Eustace," I said, sadly. " Every
way, the prospect seems a hopeless one. As long as I am
C



50             THE LAW AND THE LADY.
shut out from your confidence, it matters little whether we
live on land or at sea-we can not live happily."
" If you could control your curiosity," he answered, sternly, "we might live happily enough. I thought I had Inarried a woman who was superior to the vulgar failings of her
sex. A good wife should know better than to pry into affairs of her husband's with which she had no concern."
Surely it was hard to bear this? However, I bore it.
"Is it no concern of mine?" I asked, gently, " when I find
that my husband has not married me under his family name?
Is it no concern of mine when I hear your mother say, in so
many words, that she pities your wife? It is hard, Eustace,
to accuse me of curiosity because I can not accept the unendurable position in which you have placed me. Your cruel
silence is a blight on my happiness, and a threat to my future. Your cruel silence is estranging us fiom each other at
the beginning of our married life. And you blame me for
feeling this? You tell me I am prying into affairs which are
yours only? They are not yours only: I have my interest
in them too. Oh, my darling, why do you trifle with our
love and our confidence in each other? Why do you keep
me in the dark?"
He answered with a stern and pitiless brevity,
"For your own good."
I turned away from him in silence. He was treating me
like a child.
He followed me. Putting one hand heavily on my shoulder, he forced me to face him once more.
" Listen to this," he said. " What I am now going to say
to you I say for the first and last time. Valeria! if you ever
discover what I am now keeping from your knowledge- from
that moment you live a life of torture; your tranquillity is
gone. Your days will be days of terror; your nights will
be full of horrid dreams - through no fault of mine, mind!
through no fault of mine! Every day of your life you will
feel some new distrust, some growing fear of me, and you
will be doing me the vilest injustice all the time. On my
faith as a Christian, on my honor as a man, if you stir a step
further in this matter, there is an end to your happiness for
the rest of your life! Think seriously of what I have said to
you; you will have time to reflect. I am going to tell my
friend that our plans for the 3Mediterrauean are given up. I



THE LAW AND THE LADY.              51
shall not be back before the evening." I-e sighed, and looked at me with unutterable sadness. "I love you, Valeria,"
he said. "In spite of all that has passed, as God is my witness, I love you more dearly than ever."
So he spoke. So he left me.
I must write the truth about myself, however strange it
may appear. I don't pretend to be able to analyze my own
motives; I don't pretend even to guess how other women
might have acted in my place. It is true of me, that my husband's terrible warning-all the more terrible in its mystery
and its vagueness-produced no deterrent effect on my mind:
it only stimulated my resolution to discover what he was
hiding from me. He had not been gone two minutes before
I rang the bell and ordered the carriage, to take me to Major
Fitz-David's house in Vivian Place.
Walking to and fro while I was waiting —I was in such a
fever of excitement that it was impossible for me to sit still
-I accidentally caught sight of myself in the glass.
My own face startled me, it looked so haggard and so
wild. Could I present myself to a stranger, could I hope to
produce the necessary impression in my favor, looking as I
looked at that moment? For all I knew to the contrary, my
whole future might depend upon the effect which I produced
on Major Fitz-David at first sight. I rang the bell again,
and sent a message to one of the chambermaids to follow
me to my room.
I had no maid of my own with me: the stewardess of the
yacht would have acted as my attendant if we had held to
our first arrangement. It mattered little, so long as I had
a woman to help me. The chambermaid appeared. I can
give no better idea of the disordered and desperate condition of my mind at that time than by owning that I actually consulted this perfect stranger on the question of my
personal appearance. She was a middle-aged woman, with
a large experience of the world and its wickedness written
legibly on her manner and on her face. I put money into
the woman's hand, enough of it to surprise her. She thanked
me with a cynical smile, evidently placing her own evil interpretation on my motive for bribing her.
"What can I do for you, ma'am?" she asked, in a confidential whisper. "Don't speak loud! there is somebody in
the next room."



52             TIIE LAW AND THE LADY.
"I want to look my best," I said, " and I have sent for
you to help me."
"I understand, ma'am."
" What do you understand?"
She nodded her head significantly, and whispered to me
again. " Lord bless you, I'm used to this!" she said. "There
is a gentleman in the case. Don't mind me, ma'am. It's a
way I have. I mean no harm." She stopped, and looked at
me critically. "I wouldn't change my dress if I were you,"
she went on. "The color becomes you."
It was too late to resent the woman's impertinence. There
was no help for it but to make use of her. Besides, she was
right about the dress. It was of a delicate maize-color, prettily trimmed with lace. I could wear nothing which suited
me better. IMy hair, however, stood in need of some skilled
attention. The chambermaid rearranged it with a ready
hand which showed that she was no beginner in the art of
dressing hair. She laid down the combs and brushes, and
looked at me; then looked at the toilet-table, searching for
something which she apparently failed to find.
"Where do you keep it?" she asked.
"What do you mean?"
" Look at your complexion, ma'am. You will frighten him
if he sees you like that. A touch of color you must have.
Where do you keep it? What! you haven't got it? you
never use it? Dear, dear, dear me!"
For a moment surprise fairly deprived her of her self-possession. Recovering herself, she begged permission to leave
me for a minute. I let her go, knowing what her errand was.
She came back with a box of paint and powders; and I said
nothing to check her. I saw, in the glass, my skin take a
false fairness, my cheeks a false color, my eyes a false brightness-and I never shrank fiom it. No! I let the odious conceit go on; I even admired the extraordinary delicacy and
dexterity with which it was all done. "Any thing" (I
thought to myself, in the madness of that miserable time),
" so long as it helps me to win the Major's confidence! Any
thing, so long as I discover what those last words of my husband's really mean!"
The transformation of my face was accomplished. The
chambermaid pointed with her wicked forefinger in the di.
rection of the glass.



THE LAW AND TIIE LADY.             53
"Bear in mind, ma'am, what you looked like when you
sefit for me," she said. " And just see for yourself how you
look now. You're the prettiest woman (of your style) in
London. Ah, what a thing pearl-powder is, when one knows
how to use it!"
CHAPTER VIII.
TIlE FRIEND OF TI-lE WOMEN.
I FIND it impossible to describe my sensations while the
carria(e was taking me to Major Fitz-David's house. I
doubt, indeed, if I really felt or thought at all, in the true
sense of those words.
From the moment when I had resigned myself into the
hands of the chambermaid I seemed in some strange way to
have lost my ordinary identity-to have stepped out of my
own character. At other times my temperament was of the
nervous and anxious sort, and my tendency was to exaggerate any difficulties that might place themselves in my way.
At other times, having before me the prospect of a critical
interview with a stranger, I should have considered with myself what it might be wise to pass over, and what it might
be wise to say. Now I never gave my coming interview
with the major a thought; I felt an unreasoning confidence
in myself, and a blind faith in him. Now neither the past
nor the future troubled me; I lived unreflectingly in the
present. I looked at the' shops as we drove by them, and
at the other carriages as they passed mine. I noticed —yes,
and enjoyed-the glances of admiration which chance footpassengers on the pavement cast on me. I said to myself,
"This looks well for my prospect of making a friend of the
MIajor!" When we drew up at the door in Vivian Place, it
is no exaggeration to say that I had but one anxiety-anxiety to find the Major at home.
The door was opened by a servant out of livery, an old man
who looked as if he might have been a soldier in his earlier
days. He eyed me with a grave attention,which relaxed little
by little into sly approval. I asked for Major Fitz-David.
The answer was not altogether encouraging: the man was
not sure whether his master were at home or not.



54             TtIE LAW AND THE LADY.
I gave him my card. MIy cards, being part of my wedding
outfit, necessarily had the false name printed on them-Mrs.
Eustace Woodville. The servant showed me into a front room
on the ground-floor, and disappeared with my card in his hand.
Looking about me, I noticed a door in the wall opposite
the window, communicating with some inner room. The
door was not of the ordinary kind. It fitted into the thickness of the partition wall, and worked in grooves. Looking
a little nearer, I saw that it had not been pulled out so as
completely to close the doorway. Only the merest chink
was left; but it was enough to convey to my ears all that
passed in the next room.
"What did you say, Oliver, when she asked for me?" inquired a man's voice, pitched cautiously in a low key.
"I said I was not sure you were at home, sir," answered
the voice of the servant who had let me in.
There was a pause. The first speaker was evidently Major
Fitz-David himself. I waited to hear more.
"I think I had better not see her, Oliver," the Major's
voice resumed.
"Very good, sir."
S'pay I have gone out, and you don't know when I shall
be back again. Beg the lady to write, if she has any business with me."
"Yes, sir."
"Stop, Oliver!"
Oliver stopped. There was another and longer pause.
Then the master resumed the examination of the man.
" Is she young, Oliver?"
" Yes, sir."
" And-pretty?"
"Better than pretty, sir, to my thinking."
"Aye? aye?  What you call a fine woman-eh, Oliver?"
" Certainly, sir."
" Tall?"
"Nearly as tall as I am, Major."
"Aye? aye? aye? A good figure?"
"As slim as a sapling, sir, and as upright as a dart."
"On second thoughts, I am at home, Oliver.  Show her
in! show her in!"
So far, one thing at least seemed to be clear. I had done
well in sending for the chambermaid. What would Oliver's



THE LAW AND THE LADY.               55
report of me have been if I had presented myself to him with
my colorless cheeks and my ill-dressed hair?
The servant reappeared, and conducted me to the inner
room. Major Fitz-David advanced to welcome me. What
was the IMajor like?
%Well, he was like a well-preserved old gentleman of, say,
sixty years old, little and lean, and chiefly remarkable by the
extraordinary length of his nose. After this feature, I noticed
next his beautiful brown wig; his sparkling little gray eyes;
his rosy complexion; his short military whisker, dyed to
match his wig; his white teeth and his winning smile; his
smart blue frock-coat, with a camellia in the button-hole;
and his splendid ring, a ruby, flashing on his little finger as
he courteously signed to me to take a chair.
"Dear MIrs. Woodville, how very kind of you this is! I
have been longing to have the happiness of knowing you.
Eustace is an old friend of mine. I congratulated him when
I heard of his marriage. May I make a confession?-I envy
him now I have seen his wife."
The future of my life was perhaps in this man's hands. I
studied him attentively; I tried to read his character in his
face.
The Major's sparkling little gray eyes softened as they
looked at me; the Major's strong and sturdy voice dropped
to its lowest and tenderest tones when he spoke to me; the
Major's manner expressed, from the moment when I entered
the room, a happy mixture of admiration and respect. He
drew his chair close to mine, as if it were a privilege to be
near me. He took my hand and lifted my glove to his lips,
as if that glove were the most delicious luxury the world
could produce. " Dear Mrs.Woodville," he said, as he softly
laid my hand back on my lap, "bear with an old fellow who
worships your enchanting sex. You really brighten this
dull house. It is such a pleasure to see you!"
There was no need for the old gentleman to make his little
confession. Women, children, and dogs proverbially know
by instinct who the people are who really like them. The
women had a warm friend-perhaps at one time a dangerously warm friend-in Major Fitz-David. I knew as much
of him as that before I had settled myself in my chair and
opened my lips to answer him.
"Thank you, Major, for your kind reception and your



56             TIHE LAW AND THE LADY.
pretty compliment," I said, matching my host's easy tone as
closely as the necessary restraints on my side would permit.
" You have made your confession. May I make mine?"
Major Fitz-David lifted my hand again from my lap and
drew his chair as close as possible to mine. I looked at him
gravely and tried to release my hand. Major Fitz-David
declined to let go of it, and proceeded to tell me why.
"I have just heard you speak for the first time," he said.
"I am under the charmn of your voice. Dear Mrs. Woodville,
bear with an old fellow who is under the charm! Don't
grudge me my innocent little pleasures. Lend me —I wish I
could say give me-this pretty hand. I am such an admirer
of pretty hands! I can listen so much better with a pretty
hand in mine. The ladies indulge my weakness. Please
indulge me too. Yes? And what were you going to say?"
"I was going to say, Major, that I felt particularly sensible
of your kind welcome because, as it happens, I have a favor
to ask of you."
I was conscious, while I spoke, that I was approaching the
object of my visit a little too abruptly. But Major FitzDavid's admiration rose from one climax to another with
such alarming rapidity that I felt the importance of administering a practical check to it. I trusted to those ominous
words," a favor to ask of you," to administer the check, and I
did not trust in vain. My aged admirer gently dropped my
hand, and, with all possible politeness, changed the subject.
"The favor is granted, of course!" he said. "And now,
tell me, how is our dear Eustace?"
"Anxious and out of spirits," I answered.
"Anxious and out of spirits!" repeated the Major. "The
enviable man who is married to You anxious and out of spirits? Monstrous! Eustace fairly disgusts me. I shall take
him off the list of my friends."
"In that case, take me off the list with him, Major. I am
in wretched spirits too. You are my husband's old friend. I
may acknowledge to you that our married life is just now
not quite a happy one."
Major Fitz-David lifted his eyebrows (dyed to match his
whiskers) in polite surprise.
" Already!" he exclaimed. " What can Eustace be made
of? Has he no appreciation of beauty and grace? Is he the
most insensible of living beings?"



THE LAW AND THE LADY.               57
"He is the best and dearest of men," I answered. "But
there is some dreadful mystery in his past life-"
I could get no farther; 3Major Fitz-David deliberately
stopped me. HIe did it with the smoothest politeness, on the
surface. But I saw a look in his bright little eyes which
said, plainly, " If you will venture on delicate ground, madam,
don't ask me to accompany you."
"' My charming friend!" he exclaimed. "May I call you
my charming friend? You have-among a thousand other
delightful qualities which I can see already-a vivid imagination. Don't let it get the upper hand. Take an old fellow's
advice; don't let it get the upper hand! What can I offer
you, dear MIrs. Woodville? A cup of tea?"
"Call me by my right name, sir," I answered, boldly. "I
have made a discovery. I know as well as you do that my
name is MIacallan."
The Major started, and looked at me very attentively.
His manner became grave, his tone changed completely,
when he spoke next.
" May I ask," he said, "if you have communicated to your
husband the discovery which you have just mentioned to
me?"
" Certainly!" I answered. "I consider that my husband
owes me an explanation. I have asked him to tell me what
his extraordinary conduct means-and he has refused, in language that frightens me. I have appealed to his motherand she has refused to explain, in language that humiliates
me. Dear Major Fitz-David, I have no friends to take my
part: I have nobody to come to but you! Do me the greatest of all favors-tell me why your friend Eustace has married me under a false name!"
"Do me the greatest of all favors," answered the Major.
"Don't ask me to say a word about it."
He looked, in spite of his unsatisfactory reply, as if he
really felt for me. I determined to try my utmost powers
of persuasion; I resolved not to be beaten at the first repulse.
"I must ask you," I said. "Think of my position. How
can I live, knowing what I know-and knowing no more?
I would rather hear the most horrible thing you can tell me
than be condemned (as I am noxy) to perpetual misgiving
and perpetual suspense. I love my husband with all my
heart; but I can not live with him on these terms: -the misC2



58             THE LAW AND THE LADY.
ery of it would drive me mad. I am only a woman, Major.
I can only throw myself on your kindness. Don't-pray,
pray don't keep me in the dark!"
I could say no more. In the reckless impulse of the moment I snatched up his hand and raised it to my lips. The
gallant old gentleman started as if I had given him an electric
shock.
"My dear, dear lady!" he exclaimed, " I can't tell you how
I feel for you! You charm me, you overwhelm me, you touch
me to the heart. What can I say? What can I do? I can
only imitate your admirable frankness, your fearless candor.
You have told me what your position is. Let me tell you,
in my turn, how I am placed. Compose yourself-pray compose yourself! I ]lave a smelling-bottle here at the service
of the ladies. Permit me to offer it."
He brought me the smelling-bottle; he put a little stool
under my feet; he entreated me to take time enough to compose myself. " Infernal fool!" I heard him say to himself, as
he considerately turned away from me for a few moments.
"If Ihad been her husband, come what might of it, I would
have told her the truth!"
Was he referring to Eustace?  And was he going to do
what he would have done in my husband's place?-was he
really going to tell me the truth?
The idea had barely crossed my mind when I was startled
by a loud and peremptory knocking at the street door. The.Major stopped and listened attentively. In a few moments
the door was opened, and the rustling of a woman's dress
was plainly audible in the hall. The Major hurried to the
door of the room with the activity of a young man. He
was too late. The door was violently opened fiom the outer
side, just as he got to it. The lady of the rustling dress
burst into the room.
CHAPTER IX.
THE DEFEAT OF THE MAJOR.
MAJOR FITZ-DAVID'S visitor proved to be a plump, roundeyed, overdressed girl, with a florid complexion and strawcolored hair. After first fixingc on nce a broad stare of as



THE LAW AND THE LADY.                59
tonishment, she pointedly addressed her apologies for intruding on us to the Major alone. The creature evidently
believed me to be the last new object of the old gentleman's
idolatry; and she took no pains to disguise her jealous resentment on discovering us together. Major Fitz-David set
matters right in his own irresistible way. He kissed the
hand of the overdressed girl as devotedly as he had kissed
mine; he told her she was looking charmingly. Then he
led her, with his happy mixture of admiration and respect,
back to the door by which she had entered-a second door
communicating directly with the hall.
"No apology is necessary, my dear," he said. "This lady
is with me on a matter of business. You will find your singing-master waiting for you up-stairs. Begin your lesson;
and I will join you in a few minutes. Au revoir, my charming pupil —au revoir."
The young lady answered this polite little speech in a
whisper-with her round eyes fixed distrustfully on me while
she spoke. The door closed on her. Major Fitz-David was
at liberty to set matters right with me, in my turn.
"I call that young person one of my happy discoveries,"
said the old gentleman, complacently. "She possesses, I
don't hesitate to say, the finest soprano voice in Europe.
Would you believe it, I met with her at the railway station.
She was behind the counter in a refireshment-room, poor innocent, rinsing wine-glasses, and singing over her work.
Good Heavens, such singing! Her upper notes electrified
me. I said to myself,'Here is a born prima donna-I will
bring her out!' She is the third I have brought out in my
time. I shall take her to Italy when her education is sufficiently advanced, and perfect her at Milan. In that unsophisticated girl, my dear lady, you see one of the future
Queens of Song. Listen! She is beginning her scales. What
a voice! Brava! Brava! Bravissima!"
The high soprano notes of the future Queen of Song rang
through the house as he spoke.  Of the loudness of the
young lady's voice there could be no sort of doubt. The
sweetness and the purity of it admitted, in my opinion, of
considerable dispute.
Having said the polite words which the occasion rendered
necessary, I ventured to recall Major Fitz-David to the subject in discussion between us when his visitor had entered



60             THIE LAmW AND THE LADY.
the room. The MIajor was very unwilling to return to the
perilous topic on which we had just touched when the interruption occurred. He beat time with his forefinger to
the singing up-stairs; he asked me about nmy voice, and
whether I sang; he remarked that life would be intolerable
to him without Love and Art. A man in my place would
have lost all patience, and would have given up the struggle
in disgust. Being a woman, and having my end in view, my
resolution was invincible. I fairly wore out the Major's resistance, and compelled him to surrender at discretion. It is
only justice to add that, when he did make up his mind
to speak to me again of Eustace, he spoke frankly, and spoke
to the point.
" I have known your husband," he began, " since the time
when he was a boy. At a certain period of his past life a
terrible misfortune fell upon him. The secret of that misfortune is known to his friends, and is religiously kept by
his friends. It is the secret that he is keeping fiom You.
He will never tell it to you as long as he lives. And he
has bound me not to tell it, under a promise given on my
word of honor. You wished, dear Mrs. Woodville, to be
made acquainted with my position toward Eustace. There
it is!"
" You persist in calling me Mrs.VWoodville," I said.
" Your husband wishes me to persist," the Major answered. "IIe assumed the name of Woodville, fearin.to give
his own name, when he first called at your uncle's house.
He will now acknowledge no other. Remonstrance is useless. You must do what we do-you must give way to an
unreasonable man. The best fellow in the world in other
respects: in this one matter as obstinate and self-willed as
he can be. If you ask me my opinion, I tell you honestly
that I think he was wrong in courting and marrying you
under his false name. He trusted his honor and his happiness to your keeping in making you his wife. Why should
he not trust the story of his troubles to you as well?  His
mother quite shares my opinion in this matter. You must
not blame her for refusing to admit you into her confidence
after your marriage: it was then too late.  Before your
marriage she did all she could do-without betraying secrets
which, as a good mother, she was bound to respect-to induce her son to act justly toward you. I commit no indis



THE LAW AND THE LADY.               61
cretion when I tell you that she refused to sanction your
marriage mainly for the reason that Eustace refused to follow her advice, and to tell you what his position really was.
On my part I did all I could to support Mrs. Macallan in the
course that she took. When Eustace wrote to tell me that
he had engaged himself to marry a niece of my good friend
Doctor Starkweather, and that he had mentioned me as his
reference, I wrote back to warn him that I would have nothing to do with the affair unless he revealed the Whole truth
about himself to his future wife. He refused to listen to me,
as he had refused to listen to his mother; and he.held me at
the same time to my promise to keep his secret. When
Starkweather wrote to me, I had no choice but to involve
myself in a deception of which I thoroughly disapproved, or
to answer in a tone so guarded and so brief as to stop the
correspondence at the outset. I chose the last alternative;
and I fear I have offended my good old friend. You now
see the painful position in which I am placed. To add to
the difficulties of that situation, Eustace came here this very
day to warn me to be on my guard, in case of your addressing to me the very request which you have just made! He
told me that you had met with his mother, by an unlucky
accident, and that you had discovered the family name. He
declared that he had traveled to London for the express purpose of speaking to me personally on this serious subject.'I know your weakness,' he said,'where women are eoncerned. Valeria is aware that you are my old friend. She will
certainly write to you; she may even be bold enough to
make her way into your house. Renew your promise to
keep the great calamity of my life a secret, on your honor
and on your oath.' Those were his words, as nearly as I can
remember them. I tried to treat the thing lightly; I ridiculed the absurdly theatrical notion of' renewing my promise,' and all the rest of it. Quite useless! He refused to
leave me; he reminded me of his unmerited sufferings, poor
fellow, in the past time. It ended in his bursting into tears.
You love him, and so do I. Can you wonder that I let him
have his way?  The result is that I am doubly bound to
tell you nothing, by the most sacred promise that a man can
give. AIy dear lady, I cordially side with you in this matter;
I long to relieve your anxieties. But what can I do?"
He stopped, and waited-gravely waited-to hear my reply.



02            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
I had listened fiom beginning to end without interrupting
him. The extraordinary change in his manner, and in his
way of expressing himself, while he was speaking of Eustace,
alarmed me as nothing had alarmed me yet. How terrible
(I thought to myself) must this untold story be, if the mere
act of referring to it makes light-hearted Major Fitz-David
speak seriously and sadly, never smiling, never paying me a
compliment, never even noticing the singing up-stairs! My
heart sank in me as I drew that startling conclusion. For
the first time since I had entered the house I was at the end
of my resources; I knew neither what to say nor what to do
next.
And yet I kept my seat. Never had the resolution to discover what my husband was hiding from me been more firmly rooted in my mind than it was at that moment! I can
not account for the extraordinary inconsistency in my character which this confession implies. I can only describe the
facts as they really were.
The singing went on up-stairs. Major Fitz-David still
waited impenetrably to hear what I had to say-to know
what I resolved on doing next.
Before I had decided what to say or what to do, another
domestic incident happened. In plain words, another knocking announced a new visitor at the house door. On this occasion there was no rustling of a woman's dress in the hall.
On this occasion only the old servant entered the room, carrying a magnificent nosegay in his hand. "With Lady Clarinda's kind regards. To remind Major Fitz-David of his
appointment." Another lady! This time a lady with a title.
A great lady who sent her flowers and her messages without
condescending to concealment. The Major-first apologizing
to me-wrote a few lines of acknowledgment, and sent them
out to the messenger. When the door was closed again lihe
carefully selected one of the choicest flowers in the nosegay.
"May I ask," he said, presenting the flower to me with his
best grace, "whether you now understand the delicate position in which I am placed between your husband and yourself?"
The little interruption caused by the appearance of the
nosegay had given a new impulse to my thoughts, and had
thus helped, in some degree, to restore me to myself. I was
able at last to satisfy Major Fitz-David that his considerate



THE LAW AND THE LADY.               63
and courteous explanation had not been thrown away upon
me.
"I thank you, most sincerely, Major," I said. "You have
convinced me that I must not ask you to forget, on my account, the promise which you have given to my husband. It
is a sacred promise, which I too am bound to respect-I
quite understand that."
The Major drew a long breath of relief, and patted me on
the shoulder in high approval of what I had said to him.
"Admirably expressed!" he rejoined, recovering his lighthearted looks and his lover-like ways all in a moment. "My
dear lady, you have the gift of sympathy; you see exactly
how I am situated. Do you know, you remind me of my
charming Lady Clarinda. Sh]e has the gift of sympathy, and
sees exactly how I am situated. I should so enjoy introducing you to each other," said the Major, plunging his long
nose ecstatically into Lady Clarinda's flowers.
I had my end still to gain; and, being (as you will have
discovered by this time) the most obstinate of living women,
I still kept that end in view.
"I shall be delighted to meet Lady Clarinda," I replied.
"In the mean time —"
" I will get up a little dinner," proceeded the Major, with a
burst of enthusiasm. "You and I and Lady Clarinda. Our
young prima donna shall come in the evening, and sing to us.
Suppose we draw out the menu? MIy sweet fiiend, what is
your favorite autumn soup?"
" In the mean time," I persisted, " to return to what we
were speaking of just now  "
The Major's smile vanished; the Major's hand dropped
the pen destined to immortalize the name of my favorite
autumn soup.
".Mlust we return to that?" he asked, piteously.
" Only for a moment," I said.
"You remind me," pursued Major Fitz-David, shaking his
head sadly, " of another charming friend of mine-a French
friend-Madame Mirliflore. You are a person of prodigious
tenacity of purpose. Madame Mirliflore is a person of prodigious tenacity of purpose. She happens to be in London.
Shall we have her at our little dinner?" The Major brightened at the idea, and took up the pen again. "Do tell me,"
he said, "what is your favorite autumn soup?"



64             THE LAIV AND THE LADY.
"Pardon me," I began, "we were speaking just now-"'Oh, dear me!" cried MIajor Fitz-David.  "Is this the
other subject?"
"Yes-this is the other subject."
The Major put down his pen for the second time, and regretfully dismissed from his mind liMadame Mirliflore and the
autumn soup.
"Yes?" he said, with a patient bow and a submissive smile.
"You were going to say-"
"I was going to say," I rejoined, " that your promise only
pledges you not to tell the secret which my husband is keeping fiom me. You have given no promise not to answer me
if I venture to ask you one or two questions."
Major Fitz-David held up his hand warningly, and cast a
sly look at me out of his bright little gray eyes.
"Stop!" he said. "My sweet friend, stop there! I know
where your questions will lead me, and what the result will
be if I once begin to answer them. When your husband was
here to-day he took occasion to remind me that I was as
weak as water in the hands of a pretty woman. He is quite
right.  I am as weak as water; I can refuse nothing to a
pretty woman. Dear and admirable lady, don't abuse your
influence! don't make an old soldier false to his word of
honor!"
I tried to say something here in defense of my motives.
The Major clasped his hands entreatingly, and looked at me
with a pleading simplicity wonderful to see.
"4 Why press it?" he asked. " I offer no resistance. I am
a lamb-why sacrifice me? I acknowledge your power; I
throw myself on your mercy. All the misfortunes of my
youth and my manhood have come to me through women.
I am not a bit better in my age-I am just as fond of the
women and just as ready to be misled by them as ever, with
one foot in the grave. Shocking, isn't it? But how true!
Look at this mark!" He lifted a curl of his beautiful brown
wig, and showed me a terrible scar at the side of his head.
"That wound (supposed to be mortal at the time) was made
by a pistol bullet," he proceeded. "Not received in the service of my country-oh dear, no! Received in the service of
a much-injured lady, at the hands of her scoundrel of a husband, in a duel abroad. Well, she was worth it." He kissed
his hand affectionately to the memory of the dead or absent



THE LAW AND THE LADY.               65
lady, and pointed to a water-color drawing of a pretty country-house hancincr on the opposite wall. "That fine estate,"
he proceeded, "once belonged to me. It was sold years and
years since. And who had the money? The women-God
bless them all!-the women. I don't regret it. If I had
another estate, I have no doubt it would go the same way.
Your adorable sex has made its pretty playthings of my life,
my time, and my money-and welcome! The one thing I
have kept to myself is my honor. And now that is in danger. Yes, if you put your clever little questions, with those
lovely eyes and with that gentle voice, I know what will
happen. You will deprive me of the last and best of all my
possessions. Have I deserved to be treated in that way, and
by you, my charming friend?-by you, of all people in the
world?  Oh, fie! fie!"
He paused and looked at me as before-the picture of artless entreaty, with his head a little on one side. I made another attempt to speak of the matter in dispute between us,
fi'om my own point of view. Major Fitz-David instantly threw
himself prostrate on my mercy more innocently than ever.
"Ask of me any thing else in the wide world," he said;
"but don't ask me to be false to my friend. Spare me that
-and there is nothing I will not do to satisfy you. I mean
what I say, mind!" he went on, bending closer to mep and
speaking more seriously than he had spoken yet. "I think
you are very hardly used. It is monstrous to expect that a
woman, placed in your situation, will consent to be left for
the rest of her life in the dark.  No! no! if I saw you, at
this moment, on the point of finding out for yourself what
Eustace persists in hiding from you, I should remember that
my promise, like all other promises, has its limits and reserves. I should consider myself bound in honor not to help
you —but I would not lift a finger to prevent you from discovering the truth for yourself."
At last he was speaking in good earnest: he laid a stronc
emphasis on his closing words. I laid a stronger emphasis
on them still by suddenly leaving my chair. The impulse
to spring to my feet was irresistible. Major Fitz-David had
started a new idea in my mind.
"Now we understand each other!" I said. " I will accept
your own terms, Major. I will ask nothing of you but what
you have just offered to me of your own accord."



THE LAW AND THE LADY.               67
In the silence I could hear the music-lesson still going on in the
room above. The future prima donna had done practicing
her scales, and was trying her voice now in selections fiom
Italian operas. At the moment when I first heard her she
was singing the beautiful air from the Somnambula, " Come
per me sereno." I never hear that delicious melody, to this
day, without being instantly transported in imagination to
the fatal back-room in Vivian Place.
The Major-strongly affected himself by this time-was
the first to break the silence.
"Sit down again," he said; " and prlay take the easy-chair.
You are very much agitated; you want rest."
He was right.  I could stand no longer; I dropped into
the chair. Major Fitz-David rang the bell, and spoke a few
words to the servant at the door.
"I have been here a long time," I said, faintly. "Tell me
if I am in the way."
"In the way?" he repeated, with his irresistible smile.
"You forget that you are in your own house!"
The servant returned to us, bringing with him a tiny bottle
of Champagne and a plateful of delicate little sugared biscuits.
"I have had this wine bottled expressly for the ladies,"
said the Major. " The biscuits came to me direct from Paris.
As a favor to Qme, you must take some refreshment. And
then-"  He stopped, and looked at me very attentively.
"And then," he resumed, "shall I go to my young prima
donna up-stairs, and leave you here alone?"
It was impossible to hint more delicately at the one request
which I now had it in my mind to make to him. I took his
hand and pressed it gratefully.
"The tranquillity of my whole life to come is at stake," I
said. "When I am left here by myself, does your generous
sympathy permit me to examine every thing in the room?"
He signed to me to drink the Champagne and eat a biscuit
before he gave his answer.
"This is serious," he said. "I wish you to be in perfect
possession of yourself.  Restore your strength-and then I
will speak to you."
I did as he bade me. In a minute from the time when I
drank it the delicious sparkling wine had begun to revive me.
" Is it your express wish," he resumed, " that I should leave
you here by yourself to search the room?"



68             THE LAW AND THE LADY.
"It is my express wish," I answered.
"I take a heavy responsibility on myself in granting your
request. But I grant it for all that, because I sincerely believe-as you believe-that the tranquillity of your life to
come depends on your discovering the truth." Saying those
words, he took two keys from his pocket. "You will naturally feel a suspicion," he went on, " of any locked doors that
you may find here. The only locked places in the room are
the doors of the cupboards under the long book-case, and the
door of the Italian cabinet in that corner. The small key
opens the book-case cupboards; the long key opens the cabinet door."
With that explanation, lie laid the keys before me on the
table.
"Thus far," he said, "I have rigidly respected the promise
which I made to your husband. I shall continue to be faithful to my promise, whatever may be the result of your examination- of the room. I am bound in honor not to assist
you by word or deed. I am not even at liberty to offer you
the slightest hint. Is that understood?"
" Certainly!"
"Very good. I have now a last word of warning to give
you-and then I have done. If you do by any chance succeed in laying your hand on the clew, remember this-the
d'iscovery which follows will be a terrible one. If you have
any doubt about your capacity to sustain a shock which will
strike you to the soul, for God's sake give up the idea of
finding out your husband's secret at once and forever!"
" I thank you for your warning, Major. I must face the
consequences of making the discovery, whatever they may
be."
" You are positively resolved?"
" Positively."
" Very well. Take any time you please. The house, and
every person in it, are at your disposal. Ring the bell once
if you want the man-servant. Ring twice if you wish the
house-maid to wait on you. From time to time I shall just
look in myself to see how you are going on. I am responsible for your comfort and security, you know, while you honor me by remaining under my roof."
He lifted my hand to his lips, and fixed a last attentive
look on me.



THE LAW AND THE LADY.               69
"I hope I am not running too great a risk," he said-more
to himself than to me. " The women have led me into many
a rash action in my time. Have you' led me, I wonder, into
the rashest action of all?"
With those ominous last words he bowed gravely and left
me alone in the room.
CHAPTER X.
TILE SEARCII.
THE fire burning in the grate was not a very large one;
and the outer air (as I had noticed on my way to the house)
had something of a wintry sharpness in it that day.
Still, my first feeling, when Major Fitz-David left me, was
a feeling, of heat and oppression, with its natural result, a
difficulty in breathing freely. The nervous agitation of the
time was, I suppose, answerable for these sensations. I took
off my bonnet; and mantle and gloves, and opened the window for a little while. Nothing was to be seen outside but
a paved court-yard, with a skylight in the middle, closed at
the farther end by the wall of the Major's stables. A few
minutes at the window cooled and refreshed me. I shut it
down again, and took my first step on the way of discovery.
In other words, I began my first examination of the four
walls around me, and of all that they inclosed.
I was amazed at my own calmness. My interview with
1Major Fitz-David had, perhaps, exhausted my capacity for
feeling any stronc emotion, for the time at least. It was a
relief to me to be alone; it was a relief to me to begin the
search. Those were my only sensations so far.
The shape of the room was oblong. Of the two shorter
walls, one contained the door in grooves which I have already mentioned as communicating with the front room; the
other was almost entirely occupied by the broad window
which looked out on the court-yard.
Taking the doorway wall first, what was there, in the
shape of furniture, on either side of it? There was a cardtable on either side. Above each card-table stood a magnificent china bowl, placed on a gilt and carved bracket fixed
to the wall.



70             THE LAW AND TIlE LADY.
I opened the card-tables. The drawers beneath contained
nothing but cards, and the usual counters and markers. With
the exception of one pack, the cards in both tables were still
wrapped in their paper covers exactly as they had come from
the shop. I examined the loose pack, card by card. No
writing, no mark of any kind, was visible on any one of
them. Assisted by a library ladder which stood against the
book-case, I looked next into the two china bowls. Both
were perfectly empty. Was there any thing more to examine on that side of the room? In the two corners there were
two little chairs of inlaid wood, with red silk cushions. I
turned them up and looked under the cushions, and still I
made no discoveries. When I had put the chairs back in
their places my search on one side of the room was complete. So far I had found nothing.
I crossed to the opposite wall, the wall which contained
the window.
The window (occupying, as I have said, almost the entire
length and height of the wall) was divided into three compartments, and was adorned at their extremity by handsome
curtains of dark red velvet. The ample heavy folds of the
velvet left just room at the two corners of the wall for two
little upright cabinets in buhl, containing rows of drawers,
and supporting two fine bronze productions (reduced in size)
of the Venus Milo and the Venus Callipyge. I had Major
Fitz-David's permission to do just what I pleased. I opened
the six drawers in each cabinet, and examined their contents
without hesitation.
Beginning with the cabinet in the right-hand corner, my
investigations were soon completed. All the six drawers
were alike occupied by a collection of fossils, which (judging
by the curious paper inscriptions fixed on some of them)
were associated with a past period of the Major's life when
he had speculated, not very successfully, in mines. After
satisfying myself that the drawers contained nothing but
the fossils and their inscriptions, I turned to the cabinet in
the left-hand corner next.
Here a variety of objects was revealed to view, and the
examination accordingly occupied a much longer time.
The top drawer contained a complete collection of carpenter's tools in miniature, relics probably of the far-distant time
when the Major was a boy, and when parents or friends had



TIlE LAW AND THE LADY.              71
made him a present of a set of toy tools. The second drawer
was filled with toys of another sort- presents made to Major Fitz-David by his fair friends. Embroidered braces, smart
smoking-caps, quaint pincushions, gorgeous slippers, glittering purses, all bore witness to the popularity of the friend of
the women. The contents of the third drawer were of a
less interesting sort: the entire space was filled with old account-books, ranging over a period of many years. After
looking into each book, and opening and shaking it uselessly, in search of any loose papers which might be hidden between the leaves, I came to the fourth drawer, and found
more relies of past pecuniary transactions in the shape of
receipted bills, neatly tied together, and each inscribed at
the back. Among the bills I found nearly a dozen loose papers, all equally unimportant. The fifth drawer was in sad
confusion. I took out first a loose bundle of ornamental
cards, each containing the list of dishes at past banquets
given or attended by the Major in London or Paris; next,
a box full of delicately tinted quill pens (evidently a lady's
gift); next, a quantity of old invitation cards; next, some
dog's-eared French plays and books of the. opera; next,
a pocket-corkscrew, a bundle of cigarettes, and a bunch of
rusty keys; lastly, a passport, a set of luggage labels, a broken silver snuff-box, two cigar-cases, and a torn map of Rome.
" Nothin  any where to interest me," I thought, as I closed
the fifth, and opened the sixth and last drawer.
The sixth drawer was at once a surprise and a disappointment., It literally contained nothing but the fragments of a
broken vase.
I was sitting, at the time, opposite to the cabinet, in a low
chair. In the momentary irritation caused by my discovery
of the emptiness of the last drawer, I had just lifted my foot
to push it back into its place, when the door communicating
with the hall opened, and Major Fitz-David stood before me.
His eyes, after first meeting mine, traveled downward to my
foot. The instant he noticed the open drawer I saw a change
in his face. It was only for a moment; but in that moment
he looked at me with a sudden suspicion and surprise-looked
as if he had caught me with my hand on the clew.
"Pray don't let me disturb you," said Major Fitz-David.
"I have only come here to ask you a question."
"What is it, Major?"



72             THE LAW AND THE LADY.
"HIave you met with any letters of mine in the course of
your investigations?"
"I have found none yet," I answered.' If I do discover
any letters, I shall, of course, not take the liberty of examining them."
"I wanted to speak to you about that," he rejoined. "It
only struck me a moment since, up-stairs, that my letters
might embarrass you. In your place I should feel some distrust of any thing which I was not at liberty to examine.
I think I can set this matter right, however, with very little
trouble to either of us. It is no violation of any promises
or pledges on my part if I simply tell you that my letters
will not assist the discovery which you are trying to make.
You can safely pass them over as objects that are not worth
examining from your point of view. You understand me, I
am sure?"
" I am much obliged to you, Major-I quite understand."
"Are you feeling any fatigue?"
" None whatever, thank you."
"And you still hope to succeed? You are not beginning
to be discouraged already?"
"I am not in the least discouraged. With your kind leave,
I mean to persevere for some time yet."
I had not closed the drawer of the cabinet while wve were
talking, and I glanced carelessly, as I answered him, at the
fragments of the broken vase. By this time he had got his
feelings under perfect command. He, too, glanced at the
fragments of the vase with an appearance of perfect indifference. I remembered the look of suspicion and surprise
that had escaped him on entering the room, and I thought
his indifference a little overacted.
"Th1at doesn't look very encouraging," he said, with a
smile, pointing to the shattered pieces of china in the
drawer.
"Appearances are not always to be trusted," I replied.
"The wisest thing I can do in my present situation is to
suspect every thing, even down to a broken vase."
I looked hard at him as I spoke. HIe changed the subject.
"Does the music up-stairs annoy you?" he asked.
" Not in the least, Major."
"It will soon be over now. The singing-master is going,
and the Italian master has just arrived. I am sparing no



THE LAW AND TIlE LADY.              73
pains to make my young prima donna a most accomplished
person. In learning to sing she must also learn the language
which is especially the language of music. I shall perfect
her in the accent when I take her to Italy. It is the height
of my ambition to have her mistaken for an Italian when
she sings in public. Is there any thing I can do before I
leave you again? May I send you some more Champagne?
Please say yes!"
"A thousand thanks, Major. No more Champagne for
the present."
He turned at the door to kiss his hand to me at parting.
At the same moment I saw his eyes wander slyly toward the
book-case. It was only for an instant. I had barely detected him before he was out of the room.
Left by myself again, I looked at the book-case-looked at
it attentively for the first time.
It was a handsome piece of furniture in ancient carved
oak, and it stood against the wall which ran parallel with
the hall of the house. Excepting the space occupied in the
upper corner of the room by the second door, which opened
into the hall, the book-case filled the whole length of the
wall down to the window. The top was ornamented by
vases, candelabra, and statuettes, in pairs, placed in a row.
Looking along the row, I noticed a vacant space on the top
of the book-case at the extremity of it which was nearest to
the window. The opposite extremity, nearest to the door,
was occupied by a handsome painted vase of a very peculiar
pattern. Where was the corresponding vase, which ought
to have been placed at the corresponding extremity of the
book-case? I returned to the open sixth drawer of the cabinet, and looked in again. There was no mistaking the pattern on the fragments when I examined them now. The
vase which had been broken was the vase which had stood
in the place now vacant on the top of the book-case at the
end nearest to the window.
Making this discovery, I took out the fragments, down to
the smallest morsel of the shattered china, and examined
them carefully one after another.
I was too ignorant of the subject to be able to estimate
the value of the vase or the antiquity of the vase, or even to
know whether it were of British or of foreign manufacture.
The ground was of a delicate cream-color. The ornaments
D



74             THE LAW AND THE LADY.
traced on this were wreaths of flowers and Cupids surrounding a medallion on either side of the vase. Upon the space
within one of the medallions was painted with exquisite delicacy a woman's head, representing a nymph or a goddess,
or perhaps a portrait of some celebrated person-I was not
learned enough to say which. The other medallion inclosed
the head of a man, also treated in the classical style. Reclining shepherds and shepherdesses in Watteau costume,
with their dogs and their sheep, formed the adornments of
the pedestal. Such had the vase been in the days of its
prosperity, when it. stood on the top of the book-case. By
what accident had it become broken? And why had Major
Fitz-David's face changed when he found that I had discovered the remains of his shattered work of art in the cabinet
drawer?
The remains left those serious questions unanswered-the
remains told me absolutely nothing. And yet, if my own
observation of the Major were to be trusted, the way to the
clew of which I was in search lay, directly or indirectly,
through the broken vase.
It was useless to pursue the question, knowing no more
than I knew now. I returned to the book-case.
Thus far I had assumed (without any sufficient reason)
that the clew of which I was in search must necessarily reveal itself through a written paper of some sort. It now
occurred to me-after the movement which I had detected
on the part of the Major-that the clew might quite as probably present itself in the form of a book.
I looked along the lower rows of shelves, standing just
near enough to them to read the titles on the backs of the
volumes. T saw Voltaire in red morocco, Shakespeare in blue,
Walter Scott in green, the History of England in brown,
the Annual Register in yellow calf. There I paused,wearied
and discouraged already by the long rows of volumes. How
(I thought to myself) am I to examine all these books? And
what am I to look for, even if I do examine them all?
Major Fitz-David had spoken of a terrible misfortune which
had darkened my husband's past life. In what possible way
could any trace of that misfortune, or any suggestive hint
of something resembling it, exist in the archives of the Annual Register or in the pages of Voltaire? The bare idea of
such a thing seemed absurd. The mere attempt to make a



d6             THE LAW AND THE LADY.
"You startled me a little, Major."
"I am so sorry, and so ashamed! I was just going to
open the door, and tell you that I am obliged to go out. I
have received a pressing message from a lady. A charming person-I should so like you to know her. She is in sad
trouble, poor thing. Little bills, you know, and nasty tradespeople who want their money, and a husband-oh, dear me,
a husband who is quite unworthy of her! A most interesting creature. You remind me of her a little; you both have
the same carriage of the head. I shall not be more than half
an hour gone. Can I do any thing for you? You are looking fatigued. Pray let me send for some more Champagne.
No? Promise to ring when you want it. That's right! At4
revoir, my charming friend-au revoir?"
I pulled the door to again the moment his back was turned,
and sat down for a while to compose myself.
He had been watching me at the book-case! The man
who was in my husband's confidence, the man who knew
where the clew was to be found, had been watching me at
the book-case! There was no doubt of it now. Major FitzDavid had shown me the hiding-place of the secret in spite
of himself!
I looked with indifference at the other pieces of furniture,
ranged against the fourth wall, which I had not examined
yet. I surveyed, without the slightest feeling of curiosity,
all the little elegant trifles scattered on the tables and on the
chimney-piece, each one of which might have been an object
of suspicion to me under other circumstances. Even the water-color drawings failed to interest me in my present fiame
of mind. I observed languidly that they were most of them
portraits of ladies-fair idols, no doubt, of the Major's facile
adoration-and I cared to notice no more. JMy business in
that room (I was certain of it now!) began and ended with
the book-case.  I left my seat to fetch the library ladder,
determining to begin the work of investigation on the top
shelves.
On my way to the ladder I passed one of the tables, and
saw the keys lying on it which Major Fitz-David had left at
my disposal.
The smaller of the two keys instantly reminded'me of the
cupboards under the book-case. I had strangely overlooked
these. A vague distrust of the locked doors, a vague doubt



TIIE LAW AND TIHE LADY.              77
of what they might be hiding fiom me, stole into my mind.
I left the ladder in its place against the wall, and set myself
to examine the contents of the cupboaids first.
The cupboards were three in number. As I opened the
first of them the singing up-stairs ceased.  For a moment
there was something almost oppressive in the sudden change
firom noise to silence. I suppose my nerves must have
been overwrought. The next sound in the house-nothing'
more remarkable than the creaking of a man's boots descendin(r the stairs-made me shudder all over. The man was no
doubt the singing-master, going away after giving his lesson.
I heard the house door close on him, and started at the familiar sound as if it were something terrible which I had
never heard before. Then there was silence again. I roused
myself as well as I could, and began my examination of the
first cupboard.
It was divided into two compartments.
The top compartment contained nothing but boxes of cigars, ranged in rows, one on another. The under compartment was devoted to a collection of shells. They were all
huddled together anyhow, the Major evidently setting a far
higher value on his cigars than on his shells. I searched this
lower compartment carefully for any object interesting to me
which might be hidden in it. Nothing( was to be found in
ainy part of it besides the shells.
As I opened the second cupboard it struck me that the
light was beginning to fail.
I looked at the window: it was hardly evening yet. The
darkening of the light was produced by gathering clouds.
Rain-drops pattered against the glass; the autumn wind
whistled mournfully in the corners of the court-yard. I
mended the fire before I renewed my search. My nerves
were in fault again, I suppose. I shivered when I went back
to the book-case. My hands trembled: I wondered what
was the matter with me.
The second cupboard revealed (in the upper division of it)
some really beautiful cameos-not mounted, but laid on cotton-wool in neat card-board trays. In one corner, half hidden under one of the trays, there peeped out the white leaves
of a little manuscript. I pounced on it eagerly, only to meet
with a new disappointment: the manuscript proved to be a
descriptive catalogue of the cameos-nothing more!



p78           THE LAW AND TIIE LADY.
Turning to the lower division of the cupboard, I found
more costly curiosities in the shape of ivory carvings from
Japan and specimens of rare silk from China. I began to
feel weary of disinterring the Major's treasures. The longer
I searched, the farther I seemed to remove myself from the
one object that I had it at heart to attain. After closing the
door of the second cupboard, I almost doubted whether it
would be worth my while to proceed farther and open the
third and last door.
A little reflection convinced me that it would be as well,
now that I had begun my examination of the lower regions
of the book-case, to go on with it to the end. I opened the
last cupboard.
On the upper shelf there appeared, in solitary grandeur,
one object only-a gorgeously bound book.
It was of a larger size than usual, judging of it by comparison with the dimensions of modern volumes. The binding
was of blue velvet, with clasps of silver worked in beautiful
arabesque patterns, and with a lock of the same precious metal to protect the book from prying eyes. When I took it
up, I found that the lock was not closed.
hlad I any right to take advantage of this accident, and
open the book? I h]ave put the question since to some of
my friends of both sexes. The women all agree that I was
perfectly justified, considering the serious interests that I had
at stake, in taking any advantage of any book in the Major's
house. The men differ fiom this view, and declare that I
ought to have put back the volume in blue velvet unopened,
carefully guarding myself from any after-temptation to look
at it again by locking the cupboard door. I'dare say the
men are right.
Being a woman, however, I opened the book without a
moment's hesitation.
The leaves were of the finest vellum, with tastefully designed illuminations all round them. And what did these
highly ornamental pages contain? To my unutterable amazeinent and disgust, they contained locks of hair, let neatly into
the centre of each page, with inscriptions beneath, which
proved them to be love-tokens from various ladies who had
touched the Major's susceptible heart at different periods of
his life. The inscriptions were written in other languages
besides English, but they appeared to be all equally devoted



THE LAW AND THE LADY.               79
to the same curious purpose, namely, to reminding the Major
of the dates at which his various attachments had come to
an untimely end. Thus the first page exhibited a lock of
the lightest flaxen hair, with these lines beneath: "My adored
Madeline. Eternal constancy. Alas, July 22, 1839!" The
next page was adorned by a darker shade of hair, with a
French inscription under it: " Clemence. Idole de mon ame.
Toujours fiddle. IHelas, 2me Avril, 1840." A lock of red hair
followed, with a lamentation in Latin under it, a note being
attached to the date of dissolution of partnership in this case,
stating that the lady was descended from the ancient Romans, and was therefbre mourned appropriately in Latin by
her devoted Fitz-David. Miore shades of hair and more inscriptions followed, until I was weary of looking at them. I
put down the book, disgusted with the creatures who had
assisted in filling it, and then took it up again, by an afterthought. Thus far I had thoroughly searched every thing
that had presented itself to my notice. Agreeable or not
agreeable, it was plainly of serious importance to my own
interests to go on as I had begun, and thoroughly to search
the book.
I turned over the pages until I came to the first blank leaf.
Seeing that they were all blank leaves from this place to the
end, I lifted the volume by the back, and, as a last measure
of precaution, shook it so as to dislodge any loose papers or
cards which might have escaped my notice between the
leaves.
This time my patience was rewarded by a discovery which
indescribably irritated and distressed me.
A small photograph, mounted on a card, fell out of the
book. A first glance showed me that it represented the
portraits of two persons.
One of the persons I recognized as my husband.
The other person was a woman.
Her face was entirely unknown to me. She was not young.
The picture represented her seated on a chair, with my husband standing behind, and bending over her, holding one of
her hands in his. The woman's face was hard-featured and
ugly, with the marking lines of strong passions and resolute
self-will plainly written on it. Still, ugly as she was, I felt a
pang of jealousy as I noticed the familiarly affectionate action hy which the artist (with the permission of his sitters,



80             THE LAW AND THE LADY.
of course) had connected the two figures in a group. Eustace had briefly told me, in the days of our courtship, that lie
had more than once fancied himself to be in love before he
met with me.  Could this very unattractive woman have
been one of the early objects of his admiration? Had she
been near enough and dear enough to him to be photographed with her hand in his? I looked and looked at the portraits until I could endure them no longer. Women are
strange creatures-mysteries even to themselves. I threw
the photograph from me into a corner of the cupboard. I
was savagely angry with my husband; I hated-yes, hated
with all my heart and soul! —the woman who had got his
hand in hers-the unknown woman with the self-willed,
hard-featured face.
All this time the lower shelf of the cupboard was still
waiting to be looked over.
I knelt down to examine it, eager to clear my mind, if I
could, of the degrading jealousy that had got possession of.
me.
Unfortunately, the lower shelf contained nothing but relics
of the MIajor's military life, comprising his sword and pistols,
his epaulets, his sash, and other minor accoutrements. None
of these objects excited the slightest interest in me. My
eyes wandered back to the upper shelf; and, like the fool I
was (there is no milder word that can fitly describe me at
that moment), I took the photograph out again, and enraged
myself uselessly by another look at it. This time I observed,
what I had not noticed before, that there were some lines of
writing (in a woman's hand) at the back of the portraits.
The lines ran thus:
"To Major Fitz-David, with two vases. From his fiiends,
S. and E. MI."
Was one of those two vases the vase that had been brolken?
And was the change that I had noticed in Major Fitz-David's
face produced by some past association in connection with
it, which in some way affected me? It might or might not
be so. I was little disposed to indulge in speculation on this
topic while the far more serious question of the initials confironted me on the back of the photograph.
"S. and E. M?" Those last two letters might stand for
the initials of my husband's name —his true name-Eustace
Macallan. In this case the first letter (" S.") in all probabil



THE LAW AND THE LADY.               81
ity indicated her name. What right had she to associate
herself with him in that manner? I considered a little
my memory exerted itself —I suddenly called to mind that
Eustace had sisters. He had spoken of them more than
once in the time before our marriage. Had I been mad
enough to torture myself with jealousy of my husband's sister?  It might well be so; "S." might stand for his sister's
Christian name. I felt heartily ashamed of myself as this
new view of the matter dawned on me. What a wrong I
had done to them both in my thoughts! I turned the photograph, sadly and penitently, to examine the portraits again
with a kinder and truer appreciation of them.
I naturally looked now for a family likeness between the
two faces. There was no family likeness; on the contrary,
they were as unlike each other in form and expression as
faces could be. WVas she his sister, after all? I looked at
her hands, as represented in the portrait. Her right hand
was clasped by Eustace; her left hand lay on her lap. On
the third finger, distinctly visible, there was a wedding-ring.
Were any of my husband's sisters married? I had myself
asked him the question when he mentioned them to me, and
I perfectly remembered that he had replied in the negative.
Was it possible that my first jealous instinct had led me
to the right conclusion after all? If it had, what did the association of the three initial letters mean? What did the
wedding-ring mean? Good Heavens! was I looking at the
portrait of a rival in my husband's affections-and was that
rival his Wife?
I threw the photograph from me with a cry of horror.
For one terrible moment I felt as if my reason was giving
way. I don't know what would have happened, or what I
should have done next, if my love for Eustace had not taken
the uppermost place among the contending emotions that
tortured me. That faithful love steadied my brain. That
faithful love roused the reviving influences of my better and
nobler sense. Was the man whom I had enshrined in my
heart of hearts capable of such base wickedness as the bar,:
idea of his marriage to another woman implied? No!'Mine
was the baseness, mine the wickedness, in having even for a
moment thought it of him!
I picked up the detestable photograph from the floor, and
put it back in the book. I hastily closed the cupboard door,
) 2



82             THE LAW AND THE LADY.
fetched the library ladder, and set it against the book-case.
My one idea now was the idea of taking refuge in employment of any sort from my own thoughts. I felt the hateful suspicion that had degraded me coming back again in
spite of my efforts to repel it. The books! the books! my
only hope was to absorb myself, body and soul, in the books.
I had one foot on the ladder, when I heard the door of the
room open-the door which communicated with the hall.
I looked around, expecting to see the Major. I saw instead the Major's future prima donna standing just inside
the door, with her round eyes steadily fixed on me.
"I can stand a good deal," the girl began, coolly, " but I
can't stand this any longer."
"What is it that you can't stand any longer?" I asked.
" If you have been here a minute, you have been here two
good hours," Me went on. "All by yourself in the Major's
study. I am of a jealous disposition-I am. And I want to
know what it means." She advanced a few steps nearer to
me, with a heightening color and a threatening look. "Is he
going to bring you out on the stage?" she asked, sharply.
" Certainly not."
"He ain't in love with you, is he?"
Under other circumstances I might have told her to leave
the room. In my position at that critical moment the mere
presence of a human creature was a positive relief to me.
Even this girl, with her coarse questions and her uncultivated manners, was a welcome intruder on my solitude: she
offered me a refuge from myself.
" Your question is not very civilly put," I said. " However, I excuse you. You are probably not aware that I am a
married woman."
"What has that got to do with it?" she retorted. " Married or single, it's all one to the Major. That brazen-faced
hussy who calls herself Lady Clarinda is married, and she
sends him nosegays three times a week! Not that I care,
mind you, about the old fool. But I've lost my situation at
the railway, and I've got my own interests to look after, and
I don't know what may happen if I let other women come
between him and me. That's where the shoe pinches, don't
you see? I'm not easy in my mind when I see him leaving
you mistress here to do just what you like. No offense! I
speak out-I do. I want to know what you are about all by



THE LAW AND THE LADY.              83
yourself in this room? How did you pick up with the Major? I never heard him speak of you before to-day." 
Under all the surface selfishness and coarseness of this
strange girl there was a certain fiankness and freedom which
pleaded in her favor-to my mind, at any rate. I answered
fiankly and freely on my side.
"Major Fitz-David is an old friend of my husband's," I
said, "and he is kind to me for my husband's sake. He has
given me permission to look in this room-"
I stopped, at a loss how to describe my employment in
terms which should tell her nothing, and which should at the
same time successfully set her distrust of me at rest.
" To look about in this room-for what?" she asked. Her
eyefell on the library ladder, beside which I was still standing. "For a book?" she resumed.
"Yes," I said, taking the hint. "For a book."
"Haven't you found it yet?"
" No."
She looked hard at me, undisguisedly considering with
herself whether I were or were not speaking the truth.
"You seem to be a good sort," she said, making up her
mind at last. "There's nothing stuck-up about you. I'll
help you if I can. I have rummaged among the books here
over and over again, and I know more about them than you
do. What book do you want?"
As she put that awkward question she noticed for the first
time Lady. Clarinda's nosegay lying on the side-table where
the Major had left it. Instantly forgetting me and my book,
this curious girl pounced like a fiury on the flowers, and actually trampled them under her feet!
"There!" she cried. "If I had Lady Clarinda here I'd
serve her in the same way."
"What will the Major say?" I asked.
"What do I care? Do you suppose I'm afraid of him?
Only last week I broke one of his fine gimcracks up there,
and all through Lady Clarinda and her flowers!"
She pointed to the top of the book-case —to the empty
space on it close by the window. My heart gave a sudden
bound as my eyes took the direction indicated by her finger.
She had broken the vase! Was the way to discovery about
to reveal itself to me through this girl? Not a word would
pass my lips; I could only look at her.



84             TIIE LAW AND THE LADY.
"Yes!" she said. "The thing stood there. He knows'how
I hate her flowers, and he put her nosegay in the vase out
of my way. There was a woman's face painted on the china,
and he told me it was the living image of her face. It was
no more like her than I am. I was in such a rage that I up
with the book I was reading at the time and shied it at the
painted face. Over the vase went, bless your heart, crash to
the floor. Stop a bit! I wonder whether that's the book
you have been looking after? Are you like me? Do you
like reading Trials?"
Trials? Had I heard her aright? Yes: she had said
Trials.
I answered by an affirmative motion of my head. I was
still speechless. The girl sauntered in her cool way to the
fire-place, and, taking up the tongs, returned with them to
the book-case.
"Here's where the book fell," she said-" in the space between the book-case and the wall. I'll have it out in no
time."
I waited without moving a muscle, without uttering a
word.
She approached me with the tongs in one hand and with a
plainly bound volume in the other.
" Is that the book?" she said. "Open it, and see."
I took the book from her.
" It is tremendously interesting," she went on. "I've read it
twice over —I have. Mind you, I believe he did it, after all."
Did it? Did what? What was she talking about? I
tried to put the question to her. I struggled-quite vainly
-to say only these words: " What are you talking about?"
She seemed to lose all patience with me. She snatched
the book out of my hand, and opened it before me on the
table by which we were standing side by side.
"I declare, you're as helpless as a baby!" she said, contemptuously. "There! Is that the book?"
I read the first lines on the title-pageA COMPLETE REPORT
OF
THE TRIAL
OF
EUSTACE MACALLAN.



THE LAW AND THE LADY.              85
I stopped and looked up at her. She started back from
me with a scream of terror. I looked down again at. the
title-page, and read the next linesFOR THE ALLEGED POISONING
OF
HIS WIFE.
There, God's mercy remembered me. There, the black
blank of a swoon swallowed me up.
CHAPTER XI.
THE RETURN TO LIFE.
MI first remembrance when I began to recover my senses
was the remembrance of Pain —agonizing pain, as if every
nerve in my body were being twisted and torn out of me.
My whole being writhed and quivered under the dumb and
dreadful protest of Nature against the effort to recall me to
life. I would have given worlds to be able to cry out-to
entreat the unseen creatures about me to give me back to
death. How long that speechless agony held me I never
knew. In a longer or shorter time there stole over me slowly a sleepy sense of relief. I heard my own labored breathing. I felt my hands moving feebly and mechanically, like
the hands of a baby. I faintly opened my eyes and looked
round me-as if I had passed through the ordeal of death,
and had awakened to new senses in a new world.
The first person I saw was a man-a stranger. He moved
quietly out of my sight; beckoning, as he disappeared, to
some other person in the room.
Slowly and unwillingly the other person advanced to tbe
sofa on which I lay. A faint cry of joy escaped me; I tried
to hold out my feeble hands. The other person who was
approaching me was my husband!
I looked at him eagerly. He never looked at me in return.* With his eyes on the ground, with a strange appearance of confusion and distress in his face, he too moved away
out of my sight. The unknown man whom I had first noticed followed him out of the room. I called after him faint



86             THE LAW AND THE LADY.
ly, "Eustace!" He never answered; he never returned.
With an effort I moved my head on the pillow, so as to
look round on the other side of the sofa. Another familiar
face appeared before me as if in a dream. My good old
Benjamin was sitting watching me, with the tears in his
eyes.
He rose and took my hand silently, in his simple, kindly
way.
"Where is Eustace?" I asked. "Why has he gone away
and left me?"
I was still miserably weak. My eyes wandered mechanically round the room as I put the question. I saw Major FitzDavid. I saw the table on which the singing girl had opened
the book to show it to me. I saw the girl herself, sitting
alone in a corner, with her handkerchief to her eyes as if she
were crying. In one mysterious moment my memory recovered its powers. The recollection of that fatal title-page
came back to me ir all its horror. The one feeling that it
roused in me now was a longing to see my husband-to
throw myself into his arms, and tell him how firmly I believed in his innocence, how truly and dearly I loved him. I
seized on Benjamin with feeble, trembling hands. "Bring
him back to me!" I cried, wildly. "Where is he? Help me
to get up!"
A strange voice answered, firmly and kindly:
"Compose yourself, madam. Mr. Woodville is waiting
until you have recovered, in a room close by."
I looked at him, and recognized the stranger who had followed my husband out of the room. Why had he returned
alone? Why was Eustace not with me, like the rest of
them?  I tried to raise myself, and get on my feet. The
stranger gently pressed me back again on the pillow. I attempted to resist him —quite uselessly, of course. His firm
hand held me as gently as ever in my place.
"You must rest a little," he said. "You must take some
wine. If you exert yourself now you will faint again."
Old Benjamin stooped over me, and whispered a word of
explanation.
"It's the doctor, my dear. You must do as he tells
you."
The doctor! They had called the doctor in to help them-!
I began dimly to understand that my fainting fit must have



THE LAW AND THE LADY.              87
presented symptoms far more serious than the fainting fits
of women in general. I appealed to the doctor, in a helpless, querulous way, to account to me for my husband's extraordinary absence.
"Why did you let him leave the room?" I asked. "If I
can't go to him, why don't you bring him here to me?"
The doctor appeared to be at a loss how to reply to me.
He looked at Benjamin, and said," Will you speak to Mrs.
Woodville?"
Benjamin, in his turn, looked at Major Fitz-David, and
said, "Will you?" The Major signed to them both to leave
us. They rose together, and went into the front room, pulling the door to after them in its grooves. As they left us,
the girl who had so strangely revealed my husband's secret
to me rose in her corner and approached the sofa.
"I suppose I had better go too?" she said, addressing
Major Fitz-David.
"If you please," the Major answered.
He spoke (as I thought) rather coldly. She tossed her
head, and turned her back on him in high indignation. "I
must say a word for myself!" cried this strange creature,
with a hysterical outbreak of energy. "I must say a word,
or I shall burst!"
With that extraordinary preface, she suddenly turned my
way, and poured out a perfect torrent of words on me.
" You hear how the Major speaks to me?" she began. "He
blames me-poor Me-for every thing that has happened.
I am as innocent as the new-born babe. I acted for the best.
I thought you wanted the book. I don't know now what
made you faint dead away when I opened it. And the Major blames Me! As if it was my fault! I alm not one of
the fainting sort myself; but I feel it, I can tell you. Yes.!
I feel it, though I don't faint about it. I come of respectable parents-I do. My name is Hoighty-Mliss IHoighty.
I have my own self-respect; and it's wounded. I say my
self-respect is wounded, when I find myself blamed without
deserving it. You deserve it, if any body does. Didn't you
tell me you were looking for a book? And didn't I present
it to you promiscuously, with the best intentions? I think
you might say so yourself, now the doctor has brought you
to. again. I think you might speak up for a poor girl who is
worked to death with singing and languages and what not



88             THE LAW AND THE LADY.
a poor girl who has nobody else to speak for her. I am as
respectable as you are, if you come to that. My name is
Hoighty. My parents are in business, and my mamnma has
seen better days, and mixed in the best of company."
There Miss Hoighty lifted her handkerchief again to her
face, and burst modestly into tears behind it.
It was certainly hard to hold her responsible for what had
happened. I answered as kindly as I could, and I attempted
to speak to Major Fitz-David in her defense. He knew what
terrible anxieties were oppressing me at that moment; and,
considerately refusing to hear a word, he took the task of
consoling his young prima donna entirely on himself. What
he said to her I neither heard nor cared to hear: he spoke
in a whisper. It ended in his pacifying Miss Hoighty, by
kissing her hand, and leading her (as he might have led a
duchess) out of the room.
"I hope that foolish girl has not annoyed you-at such a
time as this," he said, very earnestly, when he returned to
the sofa. "I can't tell you how grieved I am at what has
happened. I was careful to warn you, as you may remember'. Still, if I could only have foreseen-"
I let him proceed no farther. No human forethought
could have provided against what had happened. Besides,
dreadful as the discovery had been, I would rather have
made it, and suffered under it, as I was suffering now, than
have been kept in the dark. I told him this. And then I
turned to the one subject that was now of any interest to
me-the subject of my unhappy husband.
" How did he come to this house?" I asked.
"He came here with Mr. Benjamin shortly after I returned," the Major replied.
" Long after I was taken ill?"
"No. I had just sent for the doctor-feeling seriously
alarmed about you."
" What brought him here? Did he return to the hotel
and miss me?"
" Yes. Hie returned earlier than he had anticipated, and
he felt uneasy at not finding you at the hotel."
"Did he suspect me of being with you? Did he come
here from the hotel?"
"No. He appears to have gone first to Mr. Benjamin to
inquire about you. What he heard fiom your old friend I



THE LAWV AND THE LADY.              89
can not say. I only know that Mr. Benjamin accompanied
him when he came here."
This brief explanation was quite enough for me -I understood what had happened. Eustace would easily fiighten simple old Benjamin about my absence from the hotel;
and, once alarmed, Benjamin would be persuaded without
difficulty to repeat the few words which had passed between
us on the subject of Major Fitz-David.  My husband's
presence in the Major's house was perfectly explained. But
his extraordinary conduct in leaving the room at the very
time when I was just recovering my senses still remained to
be accounted for. MIajor Fitz-David looked seriously embarrassed when I put the question to him.
"I hardly know how to explain it to you," he said. " Eustace has surprised and disappointed me."
He spoke very gravely. His looks told me more than his
words: his looks alarmed me.
"Eustace has not quarreled with you?" I said.
"Oh Ino!"
"He understands that you have not broken your promise
to him?"
" Certainly. lMy young vocalist (Miss Iloighty) told the
doctor exactly what had happened; and4the doctor in her
presence repeated the statement to your husband."
"Did the doctor see the Trial?"
"Neither the doctor nor Mr. Benjamin has seen the
Trial. I have locked it up; and I have carefully kept the
terrible story of your connection with the prisoner a secret fiom  all of them. MIr. Benjamin evidently has his
suspicions. But the doctor has no idea, and nMiss Hoighty has no idea, of the true cause of your fainting fit.
They both believe that you are subject to serious nervous
attacks, and that your husband's name is really Woodville.
All that the truest friend could do to spare Eustace I have
done.  He persists, nevertheless, in blaming me for letting you enter my house. And worse, far worse than this,
he persists in declaring that the event of to-day has fatally estranged you from him.'There is an end of our
married life,' he said to me,'now she knows that I am
the man who was tried at Edinburgh for poisoning my
wife!"
I rose from the sofa in horror.



90             THE LAW AND THE LADY.
"Good God!" I cried, " does Eustace suppose that I doubt
his innocence?"
"He denies that it is possible for you or for any body to
believe in his innocence," the Major replied.
"Help me to the door," I said. "Where is he?  I must
and will see him!"
I dropped back exhausted on the sofa as I said the words.
}Major Fitz-David poured out a glass of wine fi'om the bottle
on the table, and insisted on my drinking it.
" You shall see him," said the MIajor. "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 can not write of them without shuddering at the recollection-even at this distance of
time.
"Brin( 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 any body, 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 Scotchi 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."



THE LAW AND THE LADY.               91
"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 Siena. 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.
"Eustace was tried in Scotland," he said. "There is a
verdict allowed by the Scotch law, which (so far as I know)
is not permitted by the laws of any other civilized country
on the face of the earth. When the jury are in doubt whether to condemn or acquit the prisoner brought before them,
they are permitted, in Scotland, to express that doubt by a
form of compromise. If there is not evidence enough, on the
one hand, to justify them in finding a prisoner guilty, and not
evidence enough, on the other hand, to thoroughly convince
them that a prisoner is innocent, they extricate themselves
from the difficulty by finding a verdict of Not Proven."
" Was that the Verdict when Eustace was tried?" I asked.
"Yes."
"The jury were not quite satisfied that my husband was
guilty? and not quite satisfied that my husband was innocent? Is that what the Scotch Verdict means?"
" That is what the Scotch Verdict means. For three years
that doubt about him in the minds of the jury who tried him
has stood on public record."
Oh, my poor darling! my innocent martyr! I understood
it at last. The false name in which he had married me; the
terrible words he had spoken when he had warned me to respect his secret; the still more terrible doubt that he felt of
me at that moment-it was all intelligible to my sympathies,
it was all clear to my understanding, now. I got up again
from the sofa, strong in a daring resolution which the Scotch
Verdict had suddenly kindled in me-a resolution at once
too sacred and too desperate to be confided, in the first instance, to any other than my husband's ear.



92             THE LAW AND THE LADY.
"Take me to Eustace!" I cried. "I am strong enough to
bear any thing now."
After one searching look at me, the Major silently offered
me his arm, and led me out of the room.
CHAPTER XII.
THE SCOTCH VERDICT.
WE walked to the far end of the hall. Major Fitz-David
opened the door of a long, narrow room built out at the back
of the house as a smoking-room, and extending along one
side of the court-yard as far as the stable wall.
My husband was alone in the room, seated at the farther
end of it, near the fire-place. He started to his feet and faced
me in silence as I entered. The Major softly closed the door
on us and retired. Eustace never stirred a step to meet me.
I ran to him, and threw my arms round his neck and kissed
him. The embrace was not returned; the kiss was not returned. He passively submitted-nothing more.
"Eustace!" I said, "I never loved you more dearly than
I love you at this moment! I never felt for you as I feel for
you now!"
lie released himself deliberately from my arms. He signed
to me with the mechanical courtesy of a stranger to take a
chair.
"Thank you, Valeria," he answered, in cold, measured
tones. "You could say no less to me, after what has happened; and you could say no more. Thank you."
We were standing before the fire-place. He left me, and
walked away slowly with his head down, apparently intending to leave the room. I followed him-I got before himI placed myself between him and the door.
" Why do you leave me?" I said. "Why do you speak to
me in this cruel way? Are you angry, Eustace? My darlinc, if you are angry, I ask you to forgive me."
"It is I who ought to ask your pardon," he replied. " I beg
you to forgive me, Valeria, for having made you my wife."
I-e pronounced those words with a hopeless, heart-broken
humility dreadful to see. I laid my hand on his bosom. I
said, " Eustace, look at me."



THE LAW AND THE LADY.              93
IHe slowly lifted his eyes to my face-eyes cold and clear
and tearless-looking at me in steady resignation, in immovable despair. In the utter wretchedness of that moment, I
was like him; I was as quiet and as cold as my husband.
HIe chilled, he fioze me.
" Is it possible," I said, " that you doubt my belief in your
innocence?"
He left the question unanswered. He sighed bitterly to
himself. "Poor woman!" he said, as a stranger might have
said, pitying me. "Poor woman!"
My heart swelled in me as if it would burst. I lifted my
hand from his bosom, and laid it on his shoulder to support
myself.
"I don't ask you to pity me, Eustace; I ask you to do
me justice. You are not doing me justice. If you had trusted me with the truth in the days when we first knew that
we loved each other-if you had told me all, and more than
all that I know now -as God is my witness, I would still
have married you! Now do you doubt that I believe you
are an innocent man!"
"I don't doubt it," he said. "All your impulses are genelous, Valeria.  You are speaking generously and feeling
generously. Don't blame me, my poor child, if I look on farther than you do: if I see what is to come -too surely to
come-in the cruel future."
" The cruel future!" I repeated. "What do you mean?"
"You believe in my innocence, Valeria. The jury who
tried me doubted it - and have left that doubt on record.
What reason have you for believing, in the face of the Verdict, that I am an innocent man?"
"I want no reason! I believe in spite of the jury-in
spite of the Verdict."
"Will your friends agree with you?  When your uncle
and aunt know what has happened —and sooner or later
they must know it - what will they say? They will say,'Hie began badly; he concealed from our niece that he had
been wedded to a first wife; he married our niece under a
false name. He may say he is innocent; but we have only
his word for it. When he was put on his Trial, the Verdict
was Not Proven. Not Proven won't do for us. If the jury
have done him an injustice —if he is innocent-let him prove
it.' That is what the world thinks and says of me. That is



94            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
what your friends will think and say of me. The time is
coming, Valeria, when you - even You - will feel that your
friends have reason to appeal to on their side, and that you
have no reason on yours."
"That time will never come!" I answered, warmly. "You
wrong me, you insult me, in thinking it possible!"
He put down my hand from him, and drew back a step,
with a bitter smile.
"We have only been married a few days, Valeria. Your
love for me is new and young. Time, which wears away all
things, will wear away the first fervor of that love."
" Never! never!"
He drew back fiom me a little farther still.
"Look at the world around you," he said. " The happiest
husbands and wives have their occasional misunderstandings
and disagreements; the brightest married life has its passing clouds. When those days come for us, the doubts and
fears that you don't feel now will find their way to you then.
When the clouds rise in our married life - when I say my
first harsh word, when you make your first hasty reply -
then, in the solitude of your own room, in the stillness of
the wakeful night, you will think of my first wife's miserable
death. You will remember that I was held' responsible for
it, and that my innocence was never proved. You will say
to yourself,' Did it begin, in her time, with a harsh word
from him and with a hasty reply from her?  Will it one
dav end with me as the jury half feared that it ended with
her?' Hideous questions for a wife to ask herself! You
will stifle them; you will recoil from them, like a good woman, with horror. But when we meet the next morning you
will be on your guard, and I shall see it, and know in my
heart of hearts what it means. Imbittered by that knowledge, my next harsh word may be harsher still. Your next
thoughts of me may remind you more vividly and more
boldly that your husband was once tried as a poisoner, and
that the question of his first wife's death was never properly
cleared up. Do you see what materials for a domestic hell
are mingling for us here? Was it for nothing that I warned
you, solemnly warned you, to draw back, when I found you
bent on discovering the truth? Can I ever be at your bedside now, when you are ill, and not remind you, in the most
innocent things I do, of what happened at that other bed



THE LAW AND THE LADY.              95
side, in the time of that other woman Wvhom I married first?
If I pour out your medicine, I commit a suspicious actionthey say I poisoned her in her medicine. If I bring you a
cup of tea, I revive the remembrance of a horrid doubt —they
said I put the arsenic in her cup of tea. If I kiss you when
I leave the room, I remind you that the prosecution accused
me of kissing her, to save appearances and produce an affect
on the nurse. Can we live together on such terms as these?
No mortal creatures could support the misery of it. This
very day I said to you,'If you stir a step farther in this
matter, there is an end of your happiness for the rest of your
life.' You have taken that step -and the end has come to
your happiness and to mine. The blight that cankers and
kills is on you and on me for the rest of our lives!"
So far I had fobrced myself to listen to him. At those last
words the picture of the future that he was placing before
me became too hideous to be endured. I refused to hear
more.
"You are talking horribly," I said. "At your age and at
mine, have we done with love and done with hope? It is
blasphemy to Love and Hope ~o say it!"
"Wait till you have read the Trial," he answered. "You
mean to read it, I suppose?"
"Every word of it! WVith a motive, Eustace, which you
have yet to know."
" No motive of yours, Valeria, no love and hope of yours,
can alter the inexorable facts. 3My first wife died poisoned;
and the verdict of the jury has not absolutely acquitted me
of the guilt of causing her death. As long as you were ignorant of that, the possibilities of happiness were always
within our reach. Now you know it, I say again-our married life is at an end."
"No," I said. "Now I know it, our married life has begun-begun with a new object for your wife's devotion, with
a new reason for your wife's love!"
"What do you mean?"
I went near to him again, and took his hand.
"What did you tell me the world has said of you?" I
asked. "What did you tell me my friends would say of you?'Not Proven won't do for us. If the jury have done him an
injustice-if he is innocent-let him prove it.' Those were
the words you put into the mouths of my friends. I adopt



96             THE LAW AND THE LADY.
them for mine! Isay Not Proven won't do for me. Prove
your right, Eustace, to a verdict of Not Guilty. Why have
you let three years pass without doing it? Shall I guess
why?  You have waited for your wife to help you. Here
she is, my darling, ready to help you with all her heart and
soul. Here she is, with one object in life —to show the world
and to show the Scotch Jury that her husband is an innocent
man!"
I had roused myself; my pulses were throbbing; my voice
rang through the room. Had I roused him? What was
his answer?
"Read the Trial."  That was his answer.
I seized him by the arm. In my indignation and my despair I shook him with all my strength. God forgive me, I
could almost have struck him for the tone in which he had
spoken and the look that he had cast on me!
"I have told you that I mean to read the Trial," I said.
" I mean to read it, line by line, with you. Some inexcusable
mistake has been made. Evidence in your favor that might
have been found has not been found. Suspicious circumstances
have not been investigated. Crafty people have not been
watched. Eustace! the conviction of some dreadfiul oversi(rht, committed by you or by the persons who helped you,
is firmly settled in my mind. The resolution to set that vile
Verdict right was the first resolution that came to me when
I first heard of it in the next room. We will set it right!
We must set it right —for your sake, for my sake, for the
sake of our children if we are blessed with children. Oh, my
own love, don't look at me with those cold eyes! Don't answer me in those hard tones! Don't treat me as if I were
talking ignorantly and madly of something that can never be!"
Still I never roused him. His next words were spoken
compassionately rather than coldly —that was all.
"MAy defense was undertaken by the greatest lawyers in
the land," he said. "After such men have done their utmost,
and have failed-my poor Valeria, what can you, what can I,
do? We can only submit."
" Never!" I cried. " The greatest lawyers are mortal men;
the greatest lawyers have made mistakes before now. You
can't deny that."
"Read the Trial." For the third time he said those cruel
words, and said no more.



THE LAW AND TILE LADY.               97
In utter despair of moving him —feeling keenly, bitterly
(if I must own it), his merciless superiority to all that I had
said to him in the honest fervor of my devotion and my love
— I thought of Major Fitz-David as a last resort. In the
disordered state of my mind at that moment, it made no difference to me that the MIajor had already tried to reason
with him, and had failed. In the face of the facts I had a
blind belief in the influence of his old fiiend, if his old fiiend
could only be prevailed upon to support my view.
" Wait for me one moment," I said. "I want you to hear
another opinion besides mine."
I left him, and returned to the study. Major Fitz-David
was not there. I knocked at the door of communication with
the fiont room. It was opened instantly by the Major himself. The doctor had gone away. Benjamin still remained
in the room.
"Will you come and speak to Eustace?" I began. "If
you will only say what I want you to say —"
Before I could add a word more I heard the house door
opened and closed. Major Fitz-David and Benjamin heard
it too. They looked at each other in silence.
I ran back, before the Major could stop me, to the room in
which I had seen Eustace. It was empty. My husband had
left the house.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE ]IMANS DECISION.
MY first impulse was the reckless impulse to follow Eustace
-openly through the streets.
The Major and Benjamin both opposed this hasty resolution on my part. They appealed to my own sense of self-respect, without (so far as I remember it) producing the slightest
effect on my mind. They were more successful when they
entreated me next to be patient for my husband's sake. In
mercy to Eustace, they begged me to wait half an hour. If
he failed to return in that time, they pledged themselves to
accompany me in search of him to the hotel.
In mercy to Eustace I consented to wait. WVhat I suffered under the forced necessity for remainingL passive at that
E



O8             THE LAW AND THE LADY.
crisis in my life no words of mine can tell. It will be better
if I go on with my narrative.
Benjamin was the first to ask me what had passed between
my husband and myself.
" You may speak freely, my dear," he said. "I know what
has happened since you have been in Major Fitz-David's
house. No one has told me about it; I found it out for myself. If you remember, I was struck by the name of'Macallan,' when you first mentioned it to me at my cottage. I
couldn't guess why at the time. I know why now."
Hearing this, I told them both unreservedly what I had
said to Eustace, and how he had received it. To my unspeakable disappointment, they both sided with my husband,
treating my view of his position as a mere dream. They
said it, as he had said it, " You have not read the Trial."
I was really enraged with them. "The facts are enough
for me," I said.  "We know be'is innocent. Why is his
innocence not proved? It ought to be, it must be, it shall
be! If the Trial tell me it can't be done, I refuse to believe
the Trial. Where is the book, Major? Let me see for myself if his lawyers have left nothing for his wife to do. Did
they love him as I love him? Give me the book!"
Major Fitz-David looked at Benjamin.
" It will only additionally shock and distress her if I give
her the book," he said. "Don't you agree with me?"
I interposed before Benjamin could answer.
"If you refuse my request," I said, "you will oblige me,
Major, to go to the nearest bookseller and tell him to buy the
Trial for me. I am determined to read it."
This time Benjamin sided with me.
" Nothing can make matters worse than they are, sir," he
said. "If I may be permitted to advise, let her have her
own way."
The Major rose and took the book out of the Italian cabinet, to which he had consigned it for safe-keeping.
"My young friend tells me that she informed you of her
regretable outbreak of temper.a few days since," he said as
he handed me the volume. "I was not aware at the time
what book she had in her hand when she so far forgot herself as to destroy the vase. When I left you in the study,
I supposed the Report of the Trial to be in its customary
place on the top shelf of the book-case, and I own I felt some



THE LAW AND THE LADY.               99
curiosity to know whether you would think of examining
that shelf. The broken vase-it is needless to conceal it
firom you now-was one of a pair presented to me by your
husband and his first wife only a week before the poor woman's terrible death. I felt my first presentiment that you
were on the brink of discovery when I found you looking at
the fragments, and I fancy I betrayed to you that something
of the sort was disturbing me. You looked as if you noticed
it."
"I did notice it, Major. And I too had a vague idea that
I was on the way to discovery. Will you look at your
watch? Have we waited half an hour yet?"
My impatience had misled me. The ordeal of the half-hour
was not yet at an end.
Slowly and more slowly the heavy minutes followed each
other, and still there were no signs of my husband's return.
We tried to continue our conversation, and failed. Nothing
was audible; no sounds but the ordinary sounds of the street
disturbed the dreadful silence. Try as I might to repel it,
there was one foreboding thought that pressed closer and
closer on my mind as the interval of waiting wore its weary
way on. I shuddered as I asked myself if our married life
had come to an end-if Eustace had really left me.
The Major saw what Benjamin's slower perception had not
yet discovered-that my fortitude was beginning to sink under the unrelieved oppression of suspense.
"Come!" he said. "Let us go to the hotel."
It then wanted nearly five minutes to the half-hour. I
looked my gratitude to Major Fitz-David for sparing ume
those last minutes: I could not speak to him or to Benjamin.
In silence we three got into a cab and drove to the hotel.
The landlady met us in the hall. Nothing had been seen
or heard of Eustace. There was a letter waiting for me upstairs on the table in our sitting-room. It had been left at
the hotel by a messenger only a few minutes since.
Trembling and breathless, I ran up the stairs, the two gentlemen following me. The address of the letter was in my
husband's handwriting. My heart sank in me as I looked
at the lines; there could be but one reason for his writing to
me. That closed envelope held his farewell words. I sat
with the letter on my lap, stupefied, incapable of opening it.
Kind-hearted Benjamin attempted to comfort and encour



100            THE LAWT AND THE LADY.
age me. The Major, with his larger experience of women,
warned the old man to be silent.
" Wait!" I heard him whisper. "Speaking to her will do
no good now. Give her time."
Acting on a sudden impulse, I held out the letter to him
as he spoke. Even moments might be of importance, if Eustace had indeed left me. To give me time might be to lose
the opportunity of recalling him.
"You are his old friend," I said. "Open his letter, Major,
and read it for me."
Major Fitz-David opened the letter and read it through to
himself. When he had done he threw it on the table with a
gesture which was almost a gesture of contempt.
" There is but one excuse for him," he said. "The man is
mad."
Those words told me all. I knew the worst; and, knowing it, I could read the letter. It ran thus:
" MY BELOVED VALERIA, —When you read these lines you
read my farewell words. I return to my solitary unfriended
life-my life before I knew you.
"My darling, you have been cruelly treated. You have
been entrapped into marrying a man who has been publicly
accused of poisoning his first wife-and who has not been
honorably and completely acquitted of the charge. And you
know it!
" Can you live on terms of mutual confidence and mutual
esteem with me when I have committed this fraud, and when
I stand toward you in this position? It was possible for you
to live with me happily while you were in ignorance of the
truth. It is not possible, now you know all.
"No! the one atonement I can make is-to leave you.
Your one chance of future happiness is to be disassociated,
at once and forever, from my dishonored life. I love you,
Valeria-truly, devotedly, passionately. But the spectre of
the poisoned woman rises between us. It makes no difference that I am innocent even of the thought of harming my
first wife. My innocence has not been proved. In this world
my innocence can never be proved. - You are young and loving, and generous and hopeful. Bless others, Valeria, with
your rare attractions and your delightful gifts. They are of
no avail with me. The poisoned woman stands between us.



THE LAW AND THE LADY.              101
If you live with me now, you will see her as I see her. That
torture shall never be yours. I love you. I leave you.
"Do you think me hard and cruel? Wait a little, and
time will change that way of thinking. As the years go on
you will say to yourself,'Basely as he deceived me, there
was some generosity in him. He was man enough to release
me of his own free will.'
" Yes, Valeria, I fully, freely release you. If it be possible
to annul our marriage, let it be done. Recover your liberty
by any means that you may be advised to employ; and be
assured beforehand of my entire and implicit submission.
MIy lawyers have the necessary instructions on this subject.
Youi uncle has only to communicate with them, and I think
he will be satisfied of my resolution to do you justice. The
one interest that I have now left in life is my interest in your
welfare and your happiness in the time to come. Your welfare and your happiness are no longer to be found in your
union with Mle.
" I can write no more. This letter will wait for you at the
hotel. It will be useless to attempt to trace me. I know my
own weakness. My heart is all yours: I might yield to you
if I let you see me again.
" Show these lines to your uncle, and to any fiiends whose
opinions you may value. I have only to sign my dishonored
name, and every one will understand and applaud my motive
for writing as I do.  The name justifies-amply justifiesthe letter. Forgive and forget me. Farewell.
IEUSTACE MACALLAN.")
In those words he took his leave of me. We had then
been married-six days.
CHAPTER XIV.
THZE WOMIAN'S ANSWER.
THIus far I have written of myself with perfect fi;ankness,
and, I think I may fairly add, with some courage as well.
MBy fiankness fails me and my courage fails me when I look
back to my husband's farewell letter, and try to recall the
storm of contending passions that it roused in my mind.



102            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
No! I can not tell the truth about myself-I dare not tell
the truth about myself-at that terrible time. Men! consult your observation of women, and imagine what I felt;
women! look into your own hearts, and see what I felt, for
yourselves.
What I did, when my mind was quiet again, is an easier
matter to deal with. I answered my husband's letter. MIy
reply to him shall appear ill these pages. It will show, in
some degree, what effect (of the lasting sort) his desertion
of me produced on my mind. It will also reveal the motives
that sustained me, the hopes that animated me, in the new
and strange life which my next chapters must describe.
I was removed from the hotel in the care of my fatherly
old friend, Benjamin.  A bedroom was prepared for me in
his little villa. There I passed the first night of my separation from my husband. Toward the morning my weary brain
got some rest-I slept.
At breakfast-time Major Fitz-David called to inquire about
me. He had kindly volunteered to go and speak for me to
my husband's lawyers on the preceding day. They had admitted that they knew where Eustace had gone, but they
declared at the same time that they were positively forbidden to communicate his address to any one. In other respects their "instructions" in relation to the wife of their
client were (as they were pleased to express it) "generous
to a fault."  I had only to write to them, and they would
furnish me with a copy by return of post.
This was the Major's news. He i'efrained, with the tact
that distinguished him, from putting any questions to me
beyond questions relating to the state of my health. These
answered, he took his leave of me for that day. He and
Benjamin had a long talk together afterward in the garden
of the villa.
I retired to my room and wrote to my uncle Starkweather,
telling him exactly what had happened, and inclosing him a
copy of my husband's letter. This done, I went out for a
little while to breathe the fiesh air and to think. I was soon
weary, and went back again to my room to rest. MIy kind
old Benjamin left me at perfect liberty to be alone as long
as I pleased. Toward the afternoon I began to feel a little
more like my old self again. I mean by this that I could



THE LAWV AND TIlE LADY.            103
think of Eustace without bursting out crying, and could
speak to Benjamin without distressing and firightening the
dear old man.
That night I had a little more sleep. The next morning I
was strong enough to confiont the first and foremost duty
that I now owed to myself-the duty of answergin   my husband's letter.
I wrote to him in these words:
"I am still too weak and weary, Eustace, to write to you
at any length. But my mind is clear. I have formed my
own opinion of you and your letter; and I know what I
mean to do now,you have left me. Some women, in my
situation,might think that you had forfeited all right to their
confidence. I don't think that.  So I write and tell you
what is in my mind in the plainest and fewest words that I
can use.
"You say you love me —and you leave me. I don't understand lovingr a woman and leaving her. For my part, in
spite of the hard things you have said and written to me,
and in spite of the cruel manner in which you have left me,
I love you —and I won't give you up. No! As long as I
live I mean to live your wife.
"Does this surprise you?  It surprises mne. If another
woman wrote ill this manner to a man who had behaved to
her as you have behaved, I should be quite at a loss to account.for her conduct. I am quite at a loss to account for
my own conduct. I ought to hate you, and yet I can't help
loving you. I am ashamed of myself; but so it is.
" You need feel no fear of my attempting to find out where
you are, and of my trying to persuade you to return to me.
I am not quite foolish enough to do that. You are not in a
fit state of mind to return to me. You are all wrong, all
over, fiom head to foot. When you get right again, I am
vain enough to think that you will return to me of your own
accord. And shall I be weak enouch to forgive you? Yes!
I shall certainly be weak enough to forgive you.
"But how are you to get right again?
"I have puzzled my brains over this question by night and
by day, and my opinion is that you will never get right again
unless I help you.
" How am I to help you?



104            TIIE LAhW AND THE LADY.
"That question is easily answered. WVhat the Law has
failed to do for you, your Wife must do for you. Do you
remember what I said when we were together in the back
room at Major Fitz-David's house? I told you that the first
thought that came to me, when I heard what the Scotch jury
had done, was the tlhought of setting their vile Verdict right.
Well! Your letter has fixed this idea more firmly in my
mind than ever. The only chance that I can see of winning
you back to me, in the character of a penitent and loving
husband, is to change that underhand Scotch Verdict of Not
Proven into an honest English Verdict of Not Guilty.
"Are you surprised at the knowledge of the law which
this way of writing betrays in an ignorant woman? I have
been learning, my dear: the Law and the Lady have begun
by understanding one another.  In plain English, I have
looked into Ogilvie's Impoerial.Dictionary, and Ogilvie tells
me,'A verdict of Not Proven only indicates that, in the
opinion of the jury, there is a deficiency in the evidence to
convict the prisoner. A verdict of Not Guilty imports the
jury's opinion that the prisoner is innocent.' Eustace, that
shall be the opinion of the world in general, and of the Scotch
jury in particular, in your case. To that one object I dedicate my life to come, if God spare me!
"Who will help me, when I need help, is more than I yet
know. There was a time when I had hoped that we should
go hand in hand together in doing this good work. That
hope is at an end. I no longer expect you, or ask you, to
help me. A man who thinks as you think can give no help
to any body-it is his miserable condition to have no hope.
So be it! I will hope for two, and will work for two; and I
shall find some one to help me-never fear-if I deserve it.
"6 I will say nothing about my plans-I have not read the
Trial yet. It is quite enough for me that I know you are
innocent. When a man is innocent, there must be a way of
proving it: the one thing needful is to find the way. Sooner
or later, with or without assistance, I shall find it. Yes! before I know any single particular -of the Case, I tell you positively-I shall find it!
"You may laugh over this blind confidence on my part, or
you may cry over it. I don't pretend to know whether I am
an object for ridicule or an object for pity. Of one thing
only I am certain: I mean to win you back, a man vindicated



THE LAWT AND THE LADY.              105
before the world,without a stain on his character or his name
-thanks to his wife.
"Write to me sometimes,Eustace; and believe me,through
all the bitterness of this bitter business, your faithful and
lovingC                                    VALERIA."
There was my reply! Poor enough as a composition (I
could write a much better letter now), it had, if I may presume to say so, one merit. It was the honest expression of
what I really meant and felt.
I read it to Benjamin. He held up his hands with his customary gesture when he was thoroughly bewildered and dismayed. "It seems the rashest letter that ever was written,"
said the dear old man. " I never heard,Valeria, of a woman
doing what you propose to do. Lord help us! the new generation is beyond my fathoming. I wish your uncle Starkweather was here: I wonder what he would say? Oh, dear
me, what a letter fiom a wife to a husband! Do you really
mean to send it to him?"
I added immeasurably to my old friend's surprise by not
even employing the post-office. I wished to see the " instructions" which my husband had left behind him. So I took
the letter to his lawyers myself.
The firm consisted of two partners. They both received
me together. One was a soft, lean man, with a sour smile:
The other was a hard, fat man, with ill-tempered eyebrows.
I took a great dislike to both of them. On their side, they
appeared to feel a strong distrust of me. We began by disagreeing. They showed me my husband's "instructions,"
providing, among other things, for the payment of one clear
half of his income as long as he lived to his wife. I positively refused to touch a farthing of his money.
The lawyers were unaffectedly shocked and astonished
at this decision. Nothing of the sort had ever happened
before in the whole course of their experience. They argued
and remonstrated with me. The partner with the ill-tempered eyebrows wanted to know what my reasons were.
The partner with the sour smile reminded his colleague
satirically that I was a lady, and had therefore no reasons to
give. I only answered, "Be so good as to forward my letter, gentlemen," and left them.
I have no wish to claim any credit to myself in these pages
E2



106            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
which I do not honestly deserve. The truth is that my pride
forbade me to accept help from Eustace, now that he had
left me. My own little fortune (eight hundred a year) had
been settled on myself when I married. It had been more
than I wanted as a single woman, and I was resolved that it
should be enough for me now. Benjamin had insisted on
my considering his cottage as my home. Under these cir'cumstances, the expenses in which my determination to clear
my husband's character might involve me were the only expenses for which I had to provide. I could afford to be independent, and independent I resolved that I would be.
While I am occupied in confessing my weakness and my
errors, it is only right to add that, dearly as I still loved my
unhappy, misguided husband, there was one little fault of his
which I found it not easy to forgive.
Pardoning other things, I could not quite pardon his concealing firom me that he had been married to a first wife.
Why I should have felt this so bitterly as I did, at certain
times and seasons, I am not able to explain. Jealousy was
at the bottom of it, I suppose. And yet I was not conscious
of being jealous-especially when I thought of the poor
creature's miserable death. Still, Eustace ought not to have
kept that secret from me, I used to think to myself, at odd
times when I was discouraged and out of temper. What
would he have said if I had been a widow, and had never
told him of it?
It was getting on toward evening when I returned to the
cottage. Benjamin appeared to have been on the lookout
for me. Before I could ring at the bell he opened the garden gate.
"Prepare yourself for a surprise, my dealr," he said. " Your
uncle, the Reverend Doctor Starkweather, has arrived from
the North, and is waiting to see you. He received your
letter this morning, and he took the first train to London as
soon as he had read it."
In another minute my uncle's strong arms were round me.
In my forlorn position, I felt the good vicar's kindness, in
traveling all the way to London to see me, very gratefully.
It brought the tears into my eyes-tears, without bitterness,
that did me good.
"I have come, my dear child, to take you back to your
old home," he said. "No words can tell how fervently I



THE LAW AND THE LADY.              107
wish you had never left your aunt and me. Well! well! we
won't talk about it. The mischief is done, and the ndxt thing
is to mend it as well as we can. If I could only get within
arm's-length of that husband of yours, Valeria - There!
there i! God forgive me, I am forgetting that I am a clergyman. What shall I forget next, I wonder?  By-the-bye,
your aunt sends you her dearest love. She is more superstitious than ever. This miserable business doesn't surprise
her a bit. She says it all began with your making that mistake about your name in signing the church register. You
remember? Was there ever such stuff? Ah, she's a foolish
woman, that wife of mine! But she means well-a good
soul at bottom. She would have traveled all the way here
along with me if I would have let her. I said,'No; you
stop at home, and look after the house and the parish, and
I'll bring the child back.' You shall have your old bedroom,
Valeria, with the white curtains, you know, looped up with
blue! We will return to the Vicarage (if you can get up in
time) by the nine-forty train to-morrow morning."
Return to the Vicarage! How could I do that? I-low
could I hope to gain what was now the one object of my existence if I buried myself in a remote north-country village?
It was simply impossible for me to accompany Doctor Starkweather on his return to his own house.
"I thank you, uncle, with all my heart," I said. "But I
am afraid I can't leave London for the present."
"You can't leave London for the present?" he repeated.
" What does the girl mean, Mr. Benjamin?"
Benjamin evaded a direct reply.
" She is kindly welcome here, Doctor Starkweather," he
said, "as long as she chooses to stay with me."
"That's no answer," retorted my uncle, in his rough-andready way. He turned to me. " What is there to keep you
in London.?" he asked. " You used to hate London. I suppose there is some reason?"
It was only due to my good guardian and friend that I
should take him into my confidence sooner or later. There
was no help for it but to rouse my courage, and tell him
frankly what I had it in my mind to do. The vicar listened
in breathless dismay. He turned to Benjamin, with distress
as well as surprise in his face, when I had done.
"God help her!" cried the worthy man. " The poor thing's
troubles have turned her brain!"



108            TIlE LAW AND THE LADY.
"I thought you would disapprove of it, sir," said Benjamin, in his mild and moderate way. "I confess I disapprove of it myself."
"'Disapprove of it' isn't the word," retorted the vicar.
"Don't put it in that feeble way, if you please. An act of
madness —that's what it is, if she really mean what she
says." IHe turned my way, and looked as he used to look
at the afternoon service whefi he was catechising an obstinate child. " You don't mean it," he said, " do you?"
" I am sorry to forfeit your good opinion, uncle," I replied.
" But I must own that I do certainly mean it."
" In plain English," retorted the vicar, " you are conceited
enough to think that you can succeed where the greatest
lawyers in Scotland have failed.  They couldn't prove this
man's innocence, all working together. And you are going
to prove it single-handed? Upon my word, you are a wonderful woman," cried my uncle, suddenly descending from
indignation to irony. "May a plain country parson, who
isn't used to lawyers in petticoats, be permitted to ask how
you mean to do it?"
"I mean to begin by reading the Trial, uncle."
"Nice reading for a young woman! Yoii will be wanting a batch of nasty French novels next. Well, and when
you have read the Trial-what then?  Have you thought
of that?"
"Yes, uncle; I have thought of that. I shall first try to
form some conclusion (after reading the Trial) as to the
guilty person who really committed the crime. Then I shall
make out a list of the witnesses who spoke in my husband's
defense. I shall go to those witnesses, and tell them who I
am and what I want. I shall ask all sorts of questions
which grave lawyers might think it beneath their dignity to
put. I shall be guided, in what I do next, by the answers
I receive. And I shall not be discouraged, no matter what
difficulties are thrown in my way. Those are my plans,
uncle, so far as I know them now."
The vicar and Benjamin looked at each other as if they
doubted the evidence of their own senses. The vicar spoke.
" Do you mean to tell me," he said, "that you are going
roaming about the country to throw yourself on the mercy
of strangers, and to risk whatever rough reception you may
get in the course of your travels? You! A young woman!



THE LAW AND THE LADY.              109
Deserted by your husband! With nobody to protect you!
MIr. Benjamin, do you hear her? And can you believe your
ears? I declare to Heaven Idon't know whether I am awake
or dreaming. Look at her-just look at her! There she
sits as cool and easy as if she had said nothing at all extraordinary, and was going to do nothing out of the common
way! What am I to do with her?-that's the serious question-what on earth am I to do with her?"
"Let me try my experiment, uncle, rash as it may look to
you," I said. " Nothing else will comfort and support me;
and God knows I want comfort and support. Don't think
me obstinate. I am ready to admit that there are serious
difficulties in my way."
The vicar resumed his ironical tone.
" Oh!" he said. "You admit that, do you? Well, there
is something gained, at any rate."
"Many another woman before me," I went on, " has faced
serious difficulties, and has conquered them-for the sake of
the man she loved."
Doctor Starkweather rose slowly to his feet, with the air
of a person whose capacity of toleration had reached its last
limits.
"Am I to understand that you are still in love with Mr.
Eustace Macallan?" he asked.
"Yes," I answered.
" The hero of the great Poison Trial?" pursued my uncle.
"The man who has deceived and deserted you? You love
him?"
"I love him more dearly than ever."
"MIr. Benjamin," said the vicar, "if she recover her senses
between this and nine o'clock to-morrow morning, send her
with her luggage to Loxley's Hotel, where I am now staying.
Good-night, Valeria. I shall consult with your aunt as to
what is to be done next. I have no more to say."
" Give me a kiss, uncle, at parting."
" Oh yes, I'll give you a kiss. Any thing you like,Valeria.
I shall be sixty-five next birthday; and I thought I knew
something of women, at my time of life. It seems I know
nothing. Loxley's IIotel is the address,Mr.Benjamin. Goodnight."
Benjamin looked very grave when he returned to me after
accompanying Doctor Starkweather to the garden gate.



110           THIE LAWT AND TIHE LADY.
"Pray be advised, my dear," he said. "I don't ask you
to consider my view of this matter as good for much. But
your uncle's opinion is surely worth considering?"
I did not reply. It was useless to say any more. I made
up my mind to be misunderstood and discouraged, and to
bear it. "Good-night, my dear old friend," was all I said
to Benjamin. Then I turned away-I confess with the tears
in my eyes —and took refuge in my bedroom.
The window-blind was up, and the autumn moonlight
shone brilliantly into the little room.
As I stood by the window, looking out, the memory came
to me of another moonlight night, when Eustace and I were
walking together in theVicarage garden before our marriage.
It was the night of which I have written, many pages back,
when there were obstacles to our union, and when Eustace
had offered to release me from my engagement to him. I saw
the dear face again looking at me in the moonlight; I heard
once more his words and mine. " Forgive me," he had said,
"for having loved you-passionately, devotedly loved you.
Forgive me, and let me go."
And I had answered, "Oh, Eustace, I am only a womandon't madden me! I can't live without you. I must and
will be your wife!" And now, after marriage had united us,
we were parted! Parted, still loving each other as passionately as ever. And why? Because he had been accused of
a crime that he had never committed, and because a Scotch
jury had failed to see that he was an innocent man.
I looked at the lovely moonlight, pursuing these remenibrances and these thoughts. A new ardor burned in me.
"No!" I said to myself. "Neither relations nor fiiends
shall prevail on me to falter and fail in my husband's cause.
The assertion of his innocence is the work of my life; I will
begin it to-night."
I drew down the blind and lit the candles. In the quiet
night, alone and unaided, I took my first step on the toilsome
and terrible journey that lay before me. From the title-page
to the end, without stopping to rest and without missing a
word, I read the Trial of my husband for the murder of his
wife.



THE LASW AND THE LADY.               111
PART II.
PARADISE REGAINED.
CHAPTER XV.
THE STORY OF THE TRIAL.
THE PRELIMINARIES.
LET me confess another weakness, on my part, before I begin the Story of the Trial. I can not prevail upon myself
to copy, for the second time, the horrible title-page which
holds up to public ignominy my husband's name. I have
copied it once in my tenth chapter. Let once be enough.
Turning to the second page of the Trial, I found a Note,
assuring the reader of the absolute correctness of the Report
of the Proceedings.  The compiler described himself as having enjoyed certain special privileges.  Thus, the presiding
Judge had himself revised his charge to the jury. And,
again, the chief lawyers for the prosecution and the defense,
following the Judge's example, had revised their speeches for
and against the prisoner. Lastly, particular care had been
taken to secure a literally correct report of the evidence given
by the various witnesses. It was some relief to me to disco-ver this Note, and to be satisfied at the outset that the Story
of the Trial was, in every particular, fully and truly given.
The next page interested me more nearly still. It enumerated the actors i'n the Judicial Drama —the meh who
held in their hands my husband's. honor and my husband's
life. Here is the List:
THE LORD JUSTICE CLERK,)
LORD DRUMFENNICK,     Judges on the Bench.
LORD NOBLEKIRK,      )
THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mintlaw),       Counsel for the Crown.
DONALD DREW, Esquire (Advocate-Depute), Counsel for the Crown.
MR. JAMES ARLISS, W. S., Agent for the Crown.
THE DEAN OF FACULTY (Farmichael),    Counsel for the Panel (otherALEXANDER CROCKET, Esquire (Advocate), i wise the Prisoner).
MR. THORNIEBANK, W.., Agents for the Panel.
MR. PLAYMORE, W. S.,



112              THE LAW AND THE LADY.
The Indictment against the prisoner then followed.  I
shall not copy the uncouth language, full of needless repetitions (and, if I know any thing of the subject, not guiltless
of bad granmmar as well), in which'my innocent husband was
solemnly and falsely accused of poisoning his first wife. The
less there is of that false and hateful Indictment on this page,
the better and truer the page will look, to my eyes.
To be brief, then, Eustace Macallan was "indicted and accused, at the instance of David Mintlaw, Esquire, Her MIajesty's Advocate, for Her Majesty's interest," of the MIurder of
his Wife by poison, at his residence called Gleninch, in the
county of Mid-Lothian. The poison was alleged to have
been wickedly and feloniously given by the prisoner to his
wife Sara, on two occasions, in the form of arsenic, administered in tea, medicine, "or other article or articles of food or
drink, to the prosecutor unknown." It was further declared
that the prisoner's wife had- died of the poison thus administered by her husband, on one or other, or both, of the stated
occasions; and that she was thus murdered by her husband.
The next paragraph asserted that the said Eustace Macallan,
taken before John Daviot, Esquire, advocate, Sheriff-Substitute of Mid-Lothian, did in his presence at Edinburgh (on
a given date, viz., the 29th of October), subscribe a Declaration stating his innocence of the alleged crime: this Declaration being reserved in the Indictment-together with certain documents, papers, and articles, enumerated in an Inventory-to be used in evidence against the prisoner. The
Indictment concluded by declaring that, in the event of the
offense charged against the prisoner being found proven by
the Verdict, he, the said Eustace Macallan,"ought to be punished with the pains of the law, to deter others friom committing like crimes in all time coming."
So much for the Indictment! I have done with it-and I
am rejoiced to -be done with it.
An Inventory of papers, documents, and articles followed
at great length on the next three pages. This, in its turn,was
succeeded by the list of the witnesses, and by the names of
the jurors (fifteen in number)'balloted for to try the case.
And then, at last, the Report of the Trial began. It resolved
itself, to my mind, into three great Questions. As it appeared to me at the time, so let me present it here.



TIlE LA~W AND TIIE LADY.            113
CHAPTER  XVI.
FIRST QUESTION-DID THE WOMAN DIE POISONED?
THE proceedings began at ten o'clock. The prisoner was
placed at the Bar, before the Higrh Court of Justiciary, at
Edinburgh. He bowed respectfully to the Bench, and pleaded Not Guilty, in a low voice.
It was observed by every one present that the prisoner's
face betrayed traces of acute mental suffering. He was
deadly pale. His eyes never once wandered to the crowd
in the Court. When certain witnesses appeared against him,
he looked at them with a momentary attention. At other
times he kept his eyes on the ground. When the evidence
touched on his wife's illness and death, he was deeply affected, and covered his face with his hands. It was a subject
of general remark and general surprise that the prisoner, in
this case (although a man), showed far less self-possession
than the last prisoner tried in that Court for murder-a
woman, who had been convicted on overwhelming  evidence.
There were persons present (a small minority only) who considered this want of composure on the part of the prisoner
to be a sign in his favor. Self-possession, in his dreadful position, signified, to their minds, the stark insensibility of a
heartless and shameless criminal, and afforded in itself a presumption, not of innocence, but of guilt.
The first witness called was John Daviot, Esquire, SheriffSubstitute of Mid-Lothian. He was examined by the Lord
Advocate (as counsel for the prosecution); and said:
"The prisoner was brought before me on the present char(re.
He made and subscribed a Declaration on the 29th of October. It was fieely and voluntarily made, the prisoner having been first duly warned and admonished."
Having identified the Declaration, the Sheriff-Substitute
— being cross-examined by the Dean of Faculty (as counsel
for the defense)-continued his evidence in these words:
"The charge against the prisoner was Murder. This was
communicated to him before he made the Declaration. The
questions addressed to the prisoner were put partly by me,



114            THE LAWV AND THE LADY.
partly by another officer, the procurator-fiscal. The answers
were given distinctly, and, so far as I could judge, without
reserve. The statements put forward in the Declaration were
all made in answer to questions asked by the procurator-fiscal or by myself."
A clerk in the Sheriff-Clerk's office then officially produced
the Declaration, and corroborated the evidence of the witness who had preceded him.
The appearance of the next witness created a marked
sensation in the Court. This was no less a person than the
nurse who had attended Mrs. Macallan in her last illnessby name Christina Ormsay.
After the first formal answers, the nurse (examined by the
Lord Advocate) proceeded to say:
"I was first sent for to attend the deceased lady on the
7th of October. She was then suffering fiom a severe cold,
accompanied by a rheumatic affection of the left knee-joint.
Previous to this I understood that her health had been fairly good. She was not a very difficult person to nurse when
you got used to her, and understood how to manage her.
The main difficulty was caused by her temper. She was not
a sullen person; she was headstrong and violent-easily excited to fly into a passion, and quite reckless in her fits of
anger as to what she said or did. At such times I really
hardly think she knew what she was about. MIy own idea is
that her temper was made still more irritable by unhappiness in her married life. She was far from being a reserved
person. Indeed, she was disposed (as I thought) to be a little too communicative about herself and her troubles with
persons like me who were beneath her in station. She did
not scruple, for instance, to tell me (when we had been long
enough together to get used to. each other) that she was
very unhappy, and fietted a good deal about her husband.
One night, when she was wakeful and restless, she said to
me-"
The Dean of Faculty here interposed, speaking on the prisoner's behalf. He appealed to the Judges to say whether
such loose and unreliable evidence as this was evidence which
could be received by the Court.
The Lord Advocate (speaking on behalf of the Crown)
claimed it as his right to produce the evidence. It was of
the utmost importance in this case to show (on the testi



THE LAW AND THE LADY.              115
mony of an unprejudiced witness) on what terms the husband and wife were living. The witness was a most respectable woman. She had won, and deserved, the confidence of
the unhappy lady whom she attended on her death-bed.
After briefly consulting together, the Judges unanimously
decided that the evidence could not be admitted. What the
witness had herself seen and observed of the relations between the husband and wife was the only evidence that they
could receive.
The Lord Advocate thereupon continued his examination
of the witness. Christina Ormsay resumed her evidence as
follows:
"3fy position as nurse led necessarily to my seeing more
of Mrs. M3acallan than any other person in the house. I am
able to speak fiom experience of many things not known to
others who were only in her room at intervals.
" For instance, I had more than one opportunity of personally observing that Mr. and Mrs. Macallan did not live
together very happily. I can give you an example of this,
not drawn from what others told me, but from what I noticed for myself.
"Toward the latter part of my attendance on Mrs. Macallan, a young widow lady named Mrs. Beauly —a cousin of
Mr. MIacallan's - came to stay at Gleninch. M3Is. Macallan
was jealous of this lady; and she showed it in my presence
only the day before her death, when Mir. Macallan came into
her room to inquire how she had passed the night.'Oh,'
she said,'never mind how Ihave slept! What do you care
whether I sleep well or ill? How has Mrs. Beauly passed
the night? Is she more beautiful than ever this morningr?
Go back to her - pray go back to her! Don't waste your
time with me!' Beginning in that manner, she worked herself into one of her furious rages. I was brushing her hair
at the time; and feeling that my presence was an impropriety under the circumstances, I attempted to leave the room.
She forbade me to go. Mr. Macallan felt, as I did, that my
duty was to withdraw, and he said so in plain words. Mrs.
Macallan insisted on my staying in language so insolent to
her husband that he said,' If you can not control yourself,
either the nurse leaves the room or I do.' She refused to
yield even then.'A good excuse,' she said,'for getting
back to Mrs. Beauly. Go!' He took her at her word, and



116            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
walked out of the room. He had barely closed the door before she-began reviling him to me in the most shocking manner. She declared, among other things she said of him, that
the news of all others which he would be most glad to hear
would be the news of her death. I ventured, quite respectfully, on remonstrating with her. She took up the hair-brush
and threw it at me, and then and there dismissed me from
my attendance on her. I left her, and waited below until
her fit of passion had worn itself out. Then I returned to
my place at the bedside, and for a while things went on
again as usual.
"It may not be amiss to add a word which may help to
explain Mrs. Macallan's jealousy of her husband's cousin.
Mrs. Macallan was a very plain woman. She had a cast in
one of her eyes, and (if I may use the expression) one of the
most muddy, blotchy complexions it was ever my misfortune
to see in a person's face. IMrs. Beauly, on the other hand,
was a most attractive lady. TIer eyes were universally admired, and she had a most beautifully clear and delicate
color. Poor Mrs. Macallan said of her, most untruly, that
she painted.
" No; the defects in the complexion of the deceased lady
were not in any way attributable to her illness. I should
call them born and bred defects in herself:
" Her illness, if I am asked to describe it, I should say was
troublesome-nothing more. Until the last day there were
no symptoms in the least degree serious about the malady
that had taken her. Her rheumatic knee was painful, of
course-acutely painful, if you like —when she moved it; and
the confinement to bed was irksome enough, no doubt. But
otherwise there was nothing in the lady's condition, before
the fatal attack came, to alarm her or any body about her.
She had her books and her writing materials on an invalid
table, which worked on a pivot, and could be arranged in
any position most agreeable to her. At times she read and
wrote a good deal. At other times she lay quiet, thinking
her own thoughts, or talking with me, and with one or two
lady friends in the neighborhood who came regularly to see
her.
" Iler writing, so far as I knew, was almost entirely of the
poetical sort. She was a great hand at composing poetry.
On one occasion only she showed me sonime of her poems. I



THE LAW AND THE LADY.              117
am no judge of such things. Her poetry was of the dismal kind, despairing about herself, and wondering why she
had ever been born, and nonsense like that. Her husband
came in more than once for some hard hits at his cruel heart
and his ignorance of his wife's merits. In short, she vented
her discontent with her pen as well as with her tongue.
There were times-and pretty often too-when an angel from
heaven would have failed to have satisfied Mrs. lMacallan.
"Throughout the period of her illness the deceased lady
occupied the same room-a large bedroom situated (like all
the best bedrooms) on the first floor of the house.
"Yes: the plan of the room now shown to me is quite accurately taken, according to my remembrance of it. One
door led into the great passage, or corridor, on which all the
doors opened. A second door, at one side (marked B on the
plan), led to IMr. MIacallan's sleeping-room. A third door, on
the opposite side (marked C on the plan), communicated with
a little study, or book-room, used, as I was told, by IMr. Maeallan's mother when she was staying at Gleninch, but seldom
or never entered by any one else.  Mr. Macallan's mother
was not at Gleninch while I was there. The door between
the bedroom and this study was locked, and the key was
taken out. I don't know who had the key, or whether there
were more keys than one in existence. The door was never
opened to my knowledge. I only got into the study, to look
at it alonc with the housekeeper, by entering through a second door that opened onto the corridor.
"I beg to say that I can speak fiom my own knowledge
positively about MIrs. MIacallan's illness, and about the sudden change which ended in her death. By the doctor's advice I made notes at the time of dates and hours, and such
like. I looked at my notes before coming here.
"From the 7th of October, when I was first called in to
nurse her, to the 20th of the same month, she slowly but
steadily improved in health. Her knee was still painful, no
doubt; but the inflammatory look of it was disappearing.
As to the other symptoms, except weakness from lying in
bed, and irritability of temper, there was really nothing the
matter with her. She slept badly, I ought perhaps to add.
But we remedied this by means of composing draughts prescribed for that purpose by the doctor.
"On the morning of the 21st, at a few minutes past six, I



118            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
got my first alarm that something was going wrong with
Mrs. Macallan.
"I was awoke at the time I have mentioned by the ringing of the hand-bell which she kept on her bed-table. Let
me say for myself that I had only fallen asleep on the sofa in
the bedroom at past two in the morning from sheer fatigue.
Hrs. Macallan was then awake. She was in one of her bad
humors with me. I had tried to prevail on her to let me remove her dressing-case from her bed-table, after she had used
it in making her toilet for the night. It took up a great deal
of room; and she could not possibly want it again before the
morning. But no; she insisted on my letting it be. There
was a glass inside the case; and, plain as she was, she never
wearied of looking at herself in that glass. I saw that she
was in a bad state of temper, so I gave her her way, and let
the dressing-case be. Finding that she was too sullen to
speak to me after that, and too obstinate to take her composing draught from me when I offered it, I laid me down
on the sofa at her bed foot, and fell asleep, as I have said.
"The moment her bell rang I was up and at the bedside,
ready to make myself useful.
"I asked what was the matter with her. She complained
of faintness and depression, and said she felt sick. I inquired
if she had taken any thing in the way of physic or food while
I had been asleep. She answered that her husband had come
in about an hour since, and, finding her still sleepless, had
himself administered the composing draught. Mr. Macallan
(sleeping in the next room) joined us while she was speaking.
HIe too had been aroused by the bell. He heard what Mrs.
Macallan said to me about the composing draught, and made
no remark upon it.'It seemed to me that he was alarmed
at his wife's faintness. I suggested that she should take a
little wine, or brandy and water. She answered that she
could swallow nothing so strong as wine or brandy, having
a burning pain in her stomach already. I put my hand on
her stomach-quite lightly. She screamed when I touched
her.
"This symptom alarmed us. We went to the village for
the medical man who had attended Mrs. Macallan during
her illness: one Mr. Gale.
"The doctor seemed no better able to account for the
change for the worse in his patient than we were. Hearing



THE LAW AND THE LADY.              119
her complain of thirst, he gave her some milk. Not long
after taking it she was sick. The sickness appeared to relieve her. She soon grew drowsy and slumbered. Mr. Gale
left us, with strict injunctions to send for him instantly if she
was taken ill again.
"Nothing of the sort happened; no change took place for
the next three hours or more. She roused up toward halfpast nine and inquired about her husband. I informed her
that he had returned to his own room, and asked if I should
send for him. She said' No.' I asked next if she would like
any thing to eat or drink. She said' No' again, in rather a
vacant, stupefied way, and then told me to go down-stairs
and get my breakfast. On my way down I met the housekeeper. She invited me to breakfast with her in her room,
instead of in the servants' hall as usual. I remained with the
housekeeper but a short time-certainly not more than half
an hour.
"Coming up-stairs again,I met the under-housemaid sweeping on one of the landings.
"The girl informed me that Mrs. Macallan had taken a
cup of tea during my absence in the housekeeper's room.
Mr. Macallan's valet had ordered the tea for his mistress by
his master's directions. The under-housemaid made it, and
took it up-stairs herself to Mrs. Macallan's room. Her master, she said, opened the door when she knocked, and took
the tea-cup fiom her with his own hand. He opened the
door widely enough for her to see into the bedroom, and to
notice that nobody was with MIrs. Macallan but himself.
"After a little talk with the under-housemaid, I returned
to the bedroom. No one was there. Mrs. Mlacallan was lying perfectly quiet, with her face turned away fiom me on
the pillow. Approaching the bedside, I kicked against something on the floor. It was a broken tea-cup. I said to Mrs.
Macallan,'How comes the tea-cup to be broken, ma'am?'
She answered, without turning toward me, in an odd, muffled
kind of voice,'I dropped it.''Before you drank your tea,
ma'am?' I asked.'No,' she said;'in handing the cup back
to MIr. Macallan, after I had done.' I had put my question,
wishing to know, in case she had spilled the tea when she
dropped the cup, whether it would be necessary to get her
any more. I am quite sure I remember correctly my question
and her answer. I inquired next if she had been longr alone.



120            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
She said, shortly,'Yes; I have been tiying to sleep.' I said,'Do you feel pretty comfortable?' She answered,'Yes,'
again. All this time she still kept her face sulkily turned
from me toward the wall. Stooping over her to arrange the
bedclothes, I looked toward her table. The writing materials which were always kept on it were disturbed, and there
was wet ink on one of the pens. I said,'Surely you haven't
been writing, ma'am?''Why not?' she said;'I couldn't
sleep.''Another poem?' I asked. She laughed to herself
-a bitter, short laugh.'Yes,' she said,'another poem.''That's good,' I said;' it looks as if you were getting quite
like yourself again. We sha'n't want the doctor any more
to-day.' She made no answer to this, except an impatient
sign with her hand. I didn't understand the sign. Upon
that she spoke again, and crossly enough, too —'I want to
be alone; leave me.'
"I had no choice but to do as I was told. To the best of
my observation, there was nothing the matter with her, and
nothing for the nurse to do. I put the bell-rope within reach
of her hand, and I went down-stairs again.
"Half an hour more, as well as I can guess it, passed. I
kept within hearing of the bell; but it never rang. I was
not quite at my ease-without exactly knowing why. That
odd, muffled voice in which she had spoken to me hung on my
mind, as it were. I was not quite satisfied about leaving her
alone for too long a time together-and then, again, I was
unwilling to risk throwing her into one of her fits of passion
by going back before she rang for me. It ended in my venturing into the room on the ground-floor called the MorningRoom, to consult Mr. Macallan.  -Ie was usually to be found
there in the forenoon of the day.
"On this occasion, however, when I looked into the Morninug-Room it was empty.
"At the same moment I heard the master's voice on the
terrace outside. I went out, and found him speaking to one
Mr. Dexter, an old friend of his, and (like Mrs. Beauly) a
guest staying in the house. Mr. Dexter was sitting at the
window of his room up-stairs (he was a cripple, and could
only move himself about in a chair on wheels), and Mr. Macallan was speaking to him from the terrace below.
"'Dexter!' I heard Mr. Macallan say.'Where is Mrs.
Beauly? Have you seen any thing of her?'



THE LAW AND THE LADY.               121
"Mr. Dexter answered, in his quick, off-hand way of speaking,'Not I. I know nothing about her.'
"Then I advanced, and, begging pardon for intruding, I
mentioned to Mr. Macallan the difficulty I was in about going back or not to his wife's room without waiting until she
rang for me. Before he could advise me in the matter, the
footman made his appearance and informed me that Mrs.
Macallan's bell was then ringing-and ringing violently.
"It was then close on eleven o'clock. As fast as I could
mount the stairs I hastened back to the bedroom.
" Before I opened the door I heard Mrs. Macallan groaning. She was in dreadful pain; feeling a burning heat in
the stomach and in the throat, together with the same sickness which had troubled her in the early morning. Though
no doctor, I could see in her face that this second attack was
of a far more serious nature than the first. After ringing
the bell for a messenger to send to Mr. Macallan, I ran to the
door to see if any of the servants happened to be within call.
" The only person I saw in the corridor was Mrs. Beauly.
She was on her way from her own room, she said, to inquire
after Mrs. Macallan's health. I said to her,'Mrs. Macallan
is seriously ill again, ma'am. Would you please tell Mr.
Macallan, and send for the doctor?' She ran down-stairs at
once to do as I told her.
"I had not been long back at the bedside when Mr. Macallan and Mrs. Beauly both came in together. Mrs. Macallan cast a strange look on them (a look I can not at all describe), and bade them leave her. Mrs. Beauly, looking very
much fiightened, withdrew immediately. Mr. Macallan advanced a step or two nearer to the bed. His wife looked at
him again in the same strange way, and cried out-half as
if she was threatening him, half as if she was entreating him
-' Leave me with the nurse. Go!' He only waited to say
to me in a whisper,' The doctor is sent for,' and then he left
the room.
" Before Mr. Gale arrived Mrs. Macallan was violently sick.
What came from her was muddy and frothy, and faintly
streaked with blood. When Mr. Gale saw it he looked very
serious. I heard him say to himself,'What does this mean?'
He did his best to relieve Mrs. Macallan, but with no good
result that I could see. After a time she seemed to suffer
less. Then more sickness came on. Then there was another
F



122            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
intermission. Whether she was suffering or not, I observed
that her hands and feet (whenever I touched them) remained
equally cold. Also, the doctor's report of her pulse was always the same-' very small and feeble.' I said to Mr. Gale,'What is to be done, sir?' And Mr. Gale said to me,'I
won't take the responsibility on myself any longer; I must
have a physician from Edinburgh.'
" The fastest horse in the stables at Gleninch was put into
a dog-cart, and the coachman drove away full speed to Edinburgh to fetch the famous Doctor Jerome.
"While we were waiting for the physician, Mr. Macallan
came into his wife's room with Mr. Gale. Exhausted as she
was, she instantly lifted her hand and signed to him to leave
her. He tried by soothing words to persuade her to let him
stay. No! She still insisted on sending him out of her
room. He seemed to feel it-at such a time, and in the presence of the doctor. Before she was aware of him, he suddenly stepped up to the bedside and kissed her on the forehead. She shrank firom him with a scream. Mr. Gale interfered, and led him out of the room.
"In the afternoon Doctor Jerome arrived.
"The great physician came just in time to see her seized
with another attack of sickness. He watched her attentively, without speaking a word. In the interval when the sickness stopped, he still studied her, as it were, in perfect silence.
I thought he would never have done examining her. When
he was at last satisfied, he told me to leave him alone with
Mr. Gale.'We will ring,' he said,'when we want you here
again.'
"It was a long time before they rang for me. The coachman was sent for before I was summoned back to the bedroom. He was dispatched to Edinburgh for the second time,
with a written message from Dr. Jerome to his head servant,
saying that there was no chance of his returning to the city
and to his patients for some hours to come. Some of us
thought this looked badly for Mrs. Macallan. Others' said
it might mean that the doctor had hopes of saving her, but
expected to be a long time in doing it.
"At last I was sent for. On my presenting myself in the
bedroom, Doctor Jerome went out to speak to Mr. Macallan,
leaving Mr. Gale along with me. From that time as long as
the poor lady lived I was never left alone with her. One of



THE LAW AND THE LADY.              123
the two doctors was always in her room.  Refreshments
were prepared for them; but still they took it in turns to eat
their meal, one relieving the other at the bedside. If they
had administered remedies to their patient, I should not have
been surprised by this proceeding. But they were at the
end of their remedies; their only business in the room seemed
to be to keep watch. I was puzzled to account for this.
Keeping watch was the nurse's business. I thought the conduct of the doctors very strange.
"By the time that the lamp was lit in the sick-room I
could see that the end was near. Excepting an occasional
feeling of cramp in her legs, she seemed to suffer less. But
her eyes looked sunk in her head; her skin was cold and
clammy; her lips had turned to a bluish paleness. Nothing
roused her now —excepting the last attempt made by her
husband to see her. He came in with Doctor Jerome, looking like a man terror-struck. She was past speaking; but
the moment she saw him she feebly made signs and sounds
which showed that she was just as resolved as ever not to let
him come near her. He was so overwhelmed that Mr. Gale
was obliged to help him out of the room. No other person
was allowed to see the patient. Mr. Dexter and Mrs. Beauly
made their inquiries outside the door, and were not invited
in. As the evening drew on the doctors sat on either side of
the bed, silently watching her, silently waiting for her death.
"Toward eight o'clock she seemed to have lost the use
of her hands and arms: they lay helpless outside the bedclothes. A little later she sank into a sort of dull sleep.
Little by little the sound of her heavy breathing grew fainter. At twenty minutes past nine Doctor Jerome told me to
bring the lamp to the bedside. He looked at her, and put
his hand on her heart. Then he said to me,'You can go
down-stairs, nurse: it is all over.' He turned to Mr. Gale.'Will you inquire if Mr. Macallan can see us?' he said. I
opened the door for Mr. Gale, and followed him out. Doctor
Jerome called me back for a moment, and told me to give
him the key of the door. I did so, of course; but I thought
this also very strange. When I got down to the servants'
hall I found there was a general feeling that something was
wrong. We were all uneasy-without knowing why.
"A little later the two doctors left the house. Mr. Macallan had been quite incapable of receiving them and hearing



124            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
what they had to say. In this difficulty they had spoken
privately with Mr. Dexter, as Mr. Macallan's old friend, and
the only gentleman then staying at Gleninch.
"Before bed-time I went up-stairs to prepare the remains
of the deceased lady for the coffin. The room in which she
lay was locked, the door leading into Mr. Macallan's room
being secured, as well as the door leading into the corridor.
The keys had been taken away by Mr. Gale. Two of the
men-servants were posted outside the bedroom to keep watch.
They were to be relieved at four in the morning-that was
all they could tell me.
" In the absence of any explanations or directions, I took
the liberty of knocking at the door of Mr. Dexter's room.
From his lips I first heard the startling news. Both the doctors had refused to give the usual certificate of death! There
was to be a medical examination of the body the next
morning."
There the examination of the nurse, Christina Ormsay,
came to an end.
Ignorant as I was of the law, I could see what impression
the evidence (so far) was intended to produce on the minds
of the jury. After first showing that my husband had had
two opportunities of administering the poison-once in the
medicine and once in the tea —the counsel for the Crown led
the jury to infer that the prisoner had taken those opportunities to rid himself of an ugly and jealous wife, whose detestable temper he could no longer endure.
Having directed his examination to the attainment of this
object, the Lord Advocate had done with the witness. The
Dean of Faculty-acting in the prisoner's interests-then
rose to bring out the favorable side of the wife's character
by cross-examining the nurse. If he succeeded in this attempt, the jury might reconsider their conclusion that the
wife was a person who had exasperated her husband beyond
endurance. In that case, where (so far) was the husband's
motive for poisoning her? and where was the presumption
of the prisoner's guilt?
Pressed by this skillful lawyer, the nurse was obliged to
exhibit my husband's first wife under an entirely new aspect.
Here is the substance of what the Dean of Faculty extracted
from Christina Ormsay:



THE LAW AND THE LADY.              125
"I persist in declaring that Mrs. Macallan had a most violent temper. But she was certainly in the habit of making
amends for the offense that she gave by her violence. When
she was quiet again, she always made her excuses to me,
and she made them with a good grace. Her manners were
engaging at such times as these. She spoke and acted like
a well-bred lady. Then, again, as to her personal appearance. Plain as she was in face, she had a good figure; her
hands and feet, I was told, had been modeled by a sculptor.
She had a very pleasant voice, and she was reported when
in health to sing beautifully. She was also (if her maid's
account was to be trusted) a pattern in the matter of dressing for the other ladies in the neighborhood. Then, as to
Mrs. Beauly, though she was certainly jealous of the beautifiul young widow, she had shown at the same time that she
was capable of controlling that feeling. It was through Mrs.
Macallan that Mrs. Beauly was in the house. Mrs. Beauly
had wished to postpone her visit on account of the state of
Mrs. Macallan's health. It was Mrs. Macallan herself-not
her husband-who decided that Mrs. Beauly should not be
disappointed, and should pay her visit to Gleninch then and
there. Further, Mrs. Macallan (in spite of her temper) was
popular with her friends and popular with her servants.
There was hardly a dry eye in the house when it was known
she was dying. And, further still, in those little domestic
disagreements at which the nurse had been present, Mr. Macallan had never lost his temper, and had never used harsh
language: he seemed to be more sorry than angry when the
quarrels took place."-Moral for the jury: Was this the sort
of woman who would exasperate a man into poisoning her?
And was this the sort of man who would be capable of poisoning his wife?
Having produced this salutary counter-impression, the
Dean of Faculty sat down; and the medical witnesses were
called next.
Here the evidence was simply irresistible.
Doctor Jerome and Mr. Gale positively swore that the
symptoms of the illness were the symptoms of poisoning by
arsenic. The surgeon who had performed the post-mortem
examination followed. He positively swore that the appearance of the internal organs proved Doctor Jerome and Mr.
Gale to be right in declaring that their patient had died



THE LAW AND THE LADY.              127
stration that Mrs. Eustace Macallan had died of poisoning by
arsenic.
" Under these circumstances, I set in motion a search and
inquiry in the house at Gleninch and elsewhere, simply for
the purpose of throwing light on the circumstances which
had attended the lady's death.
"No criminal charge in connection with the death was
made at my office against any person, either in the communication which I received from the medical men or in
any other form. The investigations at Gleninch and elsewhere, beginning on the twenty-sixth of October, were not
completed until the twenty-eighth. Upon this latter dateacting on certain discoveries which were reported to me,
and on my own examination of letters and other documents
brought to my office-I made a criminal charge against the
prisoner, and obtained a warrant for his apprehension. He
was examined before the Sheriff on the twenty-ninth of October, and was committed for trial before this Court."
The Fiscal having made his statement, and having been
cross-examined (on technical matters only), the persons employed in his office were called next. These men had a story
of startling interest to tell. Theirs were the fatal discoveries which had justified the Fiscal in charging my husband
with the murder of his wife. The first of the witnesses was
a sheriff's officer. He gave his name as Isaiah Schoolcraft.
Examined by Mr. Drew-Advocate-Depute, and counsel
for the Crown, with the Lord Advocate-Isaiah Schooleraft
said:
"' I got a warrant on the twenty-sixth of October to go to
the country-house near Edinburgh called Gleninch. I took
with me Robert Lorrie, assistant to the Fiscal. We first examined the room in which Mrs. Eustace Macallan had died.
On the bed, and on a movable table which was attached to
it,.we found books and writing materials, and a paper containing some unfinished verses in manuscript, afterward identified as being in the handwriting of the deceased. We inclosed these articles in paper, and sealed them up.
"We next opened an Indian cabinet in the bedroom. Here
we found many more verses on many more sheets of paper in
the same handwriting. We also discovered, first some letters, and next a crumpled piece of paper thrown aside in a
corner of one of the shelves. On closer examination, a chem



128            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
ist's printed label was discovered on this morsel of paper.
We also found in the folds of it a few scattered grains of
some white powder. The paper and the letters were carefully inclosed, and sealed up as before.
" Further investigation of the room revealed nothing which
could throw any light on the purpose of our inquiry., We
examined the clothes, jewelry, and books of the deceased.
These we left under lock and key. We also found her dressing-case, which we protected by seals, and took away with
us to the Fiscal's office, along with all the other articles that
we had discovered in the room.
" The next day we continued our examination in the house,
having received in the interval fresh instructions fiom the
Fiscal. We began our work in the bedroom communicating
with the room in which Mrs. Macallan had died.  It had
been kept locked since the death. Finding nothing of any
importance here, we went next to another room on the same
floor, in which we were informed the prisoner was then lying
ill in bed.
"His illness was described to us as a nervous complaint,
caused by the death of his wife, and by the proceedings which
had followed it. He was reported to be quite incapable of
exerting himself, and quite unfit to see strangers. -We insisted nevertheless (in deference to our instructions) on obtaining admission to his room. He made no reply when we
inquired whether he had or had not removed any thing from
the sleeping-room next to his late wife's, which he usually
occupied, to the sleeping-room in which he now lay. All he
did was to close his eyes, as if he were too feeble to speak
to us or to notice us. Without further disturbing him, we
began to examine the room and the different objects in it.
" While we were so employed, we were interrupted by a
strange sound. We likened it to the rumbling of wheels in
the corridor outside.
"The door opened, and there came swiftly in a gentleman
-a cripple-wheeling himself along in a chair. He wheeled
his chair straight up to a little table which stood by the prisoner's bedside, and said something to him in a whisper too
low to be overheard. The prisoner opened his eyes, and
quickly answered by a sign. We informed the crippled gentleman, quite respectfully, that we could not allow him to be
in the room at this time. He appeared to think nothing of






1I TOOK HIS CHAIR AND PULLED IT AWAY."
\  
\:j\
s~~~~~~~,.,,~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~\'\  \
\ \
I~~~~~~~SK
"I TOOK  HIIS  CHAIR AND  PULLED  IT AWAIY"'



THE LAW AND THE LADY.             129
what we said. He only answered,'My name is Dexter. I
am one of Mr. Macallan's old friends. It is you who are intruding here-not I.' We again notified to him that he must
leave the room; and we pointed out particularly that he had
got his chair in such a position against the bedside table as
to prevent us from examining it. He only laughed.'Can't
you see for yourselves,' he said,' that it is a table, and nothing more?' In reply to this we warned him that we were
acting under a legal warrant, and that he might get into
trouble if he obstructed us in the execution of our duty.
Finding there was no moving him by fair means, I took his
chair and pulled it away, while Robert Lorrie laid hold of
the table and carried it to the other end of the room. The
crippled gentleman flew into a furious rage with me for presuming to touch his chair.'My chair is Me,' he said:' how
dare you lay hands on Me?' I first opened the door, and
then, by way of accommodating him, gave the chair a good
push behind with my stick instead of my hand, and so sent
it and him safely and swiftly out of the room.
"Having locked the door, so as to prevent any further
intrusion, I joined Robert Lorrie in examining the bedside
table. It had one drawer in it, and that drawer we found
secured.' We asked the prisoner for the key.
"He flatly refused to give it to us, and said we had no
right to unlock his drawers. He was so angry that he even
declared it was lucky for us he was too weak to rise from his
bed. I answered civilly that our duty obliged us to examine
the drawer, and that if he still declined to produce the key,
he would only oblige us to take the table away and have the
lock opened by a smith.
"While we were still disputing there was a knock at the
door of the room.
"I opened the door cautiously. Instead of the crippled
gentleman, whom I had expected to see again, there was another stranger standing outside. The prisoner hailed him as
a friend and neighbor, and eagerly called upon him for protection from us. We found this second gentleman pleasant
enough to deal with. He informed us readily that he had
been sent for by Mr. Dexter, and that he was himself a lawyer, and he asked to see our warrant. Having looked at it,
he at once informed the prisoner (evidently very much to the



130            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
prisoner's surprise) that he must submit to have the drawer
examined, under protest. And then, without more ado, he
got the key, and opened the table drawer for us himself.
"We found inside several letters, and a large book with a
lock to it, having the words'My Diary' inscribed on it in
gilt letters. As a matter of course, we took possession of
the letters and the Diary, and sealed them up, to be given
to the Fiscal. At the same time the gentleman wrote out
a protest on the prisoner's behalf; and handed us his card.
The card informed us that he was Mr. Playmore, now one of
the Agents for the prisoner. The card and the protest were
deposited, with the other documents, in the care of the Fiscal. No other discoveries of any importance were made at
Gleninch.
"Our next inquiries took us to Edinburgh-to the druggist whose label we had found on the crumpled morsel of
paper, and to other druggists likewise whom we were instructed to question. On the twenty-eighth of October the
Fiscal was in possession of all the information that we could
collect, and our duties for the time being came to an end."
This concluded the evidence of Schoolcraft and Lorrie. It
was not shaken on cross-examination, and it was plainly unfavorable to the prisoner.
Matters grew worse still when the next witnesses were
called. The druggist whose label had been found on the
crumpled bit of paper now appeared on the stand, to make
the position of my unhappy husband more critical than ever.
Andrew Kinlay, druggist, of Edinburgh, deposed as follows:
" I keep a special registry book of the poisons sold by me.
I produce the book. On the date therein mentioned the
prisoner at the bar, Mr. Eustace Macallan, came into my
shop, and said that he wished to purchase some arsenic. I
asked him what it was wanted for. He told me it was wanted by his gardener, to be used, in solution, for the killing of
insects in the greenhouse. At the same time he mentioned
his name-Mr. Macallan, of Gleninch. I at once directed my
assistant to put up the arsenic (two ounces of it), and I made
the necessary entry in my book. Mr. Macallan signed the
entry, and I signed it afterward as witness. He paid for the
arsenic, and took it away with him wrapped up in two papels, the outer wrapper being labeled with my name and



THE LAW AND THE LADY.               131
address, and with the word'Poison' in'large letters-exactly like the label now produced on the piece of paper found
at Gleninch."
The next witness, Peter Stockdale (also a druggist of
Edinburgh), followed, and said:
"The prisoner at the bar called at my shop on the date
indicated on my register, some days later than the date indicated in the register of Mr. Kinlay. He wished to purchase sixpenny-worth of arsenic. My assistant, to whom he
had addressed himself, called me. It is a rule in my shop
that no one sells poisons but myself. I asked the prisoner
what he wanted the arsenic for. He answered that he wanted it for killing rats at his house, called Gleninch. I said,' Have I the honor of speaking to Mr. Macallan, of Gleninch?'
He said that was his name. I sold him the arsenic- about
an ounce and a half —and labeled the bottle in which I put
it with the word'Poison' in my own handwriting. 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 fiom the prisoner, or from
any one else, at the date to which you refer, or 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-ex



132            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
amination 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 up-stairs 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 Ormsay, being recalled, repeated what
Mrs. Macallan had said to her on the day when that lady
was first taken ill. She had said (speaking to the nurse at
six o'clock in the morning), " Mr. Macallan caine in about an
hour since; he found me still sleepless, and gave me my composing draught." This was at five o'clock in the morning,
while Christina Ormsay was asleep on the sofa. The nurse
further swore that she had looked at the bottle containing
the composing mixture, and had seen by the measuring
marks on the bottle that a dose had been poured out since
the dose previously given, administered by herself.
On this occasion special interest was excited by the crossexamination. The closing questions put to the under-housemaid and the nurse revealed for the first time what the nature of the defense was to be.
Cross-examining the under-housemaid, the Dean of Faculty
said:
" Did you ever notice when you were setting Mrs. Eustace
Macallan's room to rights whether the water left in the basin
was of a blackish or bluish color?" The witness answered,
"I never noticed any thing of the sort."



THE LAW AND THE LADY.              133
The Dean of Faculty went on:
" Did you ever find under the pillow of the bed, or in any
other hiding-place in Mrs. Macallan's room, any books or
pamphlets telling of remedies used for improving a bad complexion?" The witness answered, "No."
The Dean of Faculty persisted:
" Did you ever hear Mrs. Macallan speak of arsenic, taken
as a wash or taken as a medicine, as a good thing to improve
the complexion?" The witness answered, "Never."
Similar questions were next put to the nurse, and were all
answered by this witness also in the negative.
Here, then, in spite of the negative answers, was the plan
of the defense made dimly visible for the first time to the
jury and to the audience. By way of preventing the possibility of a mistake in so serious a matter, the Chief Judge
(the Lord Justice Clerk) put this plain question, when the
witnesses had retired, to the Counsel for the defense:
"The Court and the jury," said his lordship, "wish distinctly to understand the object of your cross-examination
of the housemaid and the nurse. Is it the theory of the defense that Mrs. Eustace Macallan used the arsenic which her
husband purchased for the purpose of improving the defects
of her complexion?"
The Dean of Faculty answered:
"That is what we say, my lord, and what we propose to
prove as the foundation of the defense. We can not dispute
the medical evidence which declares that Mrs. Macallan died
poisoned. But we assert that she died of an overdose of arsenic, ignorantly taken, in the privacy of her own room, as a
remedy for the defects —the proved and admitted defectsof her complexion.  The prisoner's Declaration before the
Sheriff expressly sets forth that lie purchased the arsenic at
the request of his wife."
The Lord Justice Clerk inquired upon this if there were
any objection on the part of either of the learned counsel to
have the Declaration read in Court before the Trial proceeded further.
To this the Dean of Faculty replied that he would be glad
to have the Declaration read. If he might use the expression, it would usefully pave the way in the minds of the jury
for the defense which he had to submit to them.
The Lord Advocate (speaking on the other side) was hap



134            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
py to be able to accommodate his learned brother in this matter. So long as the mere assertions which the Declaration
contained were not supported by proof, he looked upon that
document as evidence for the prosecution, and he too was
quite willing to have it read.
Thereupon the prisoner's Declaration of his innocenceon being charged before the Sheriff with the murder of his
wife-was read, in the following terms:
"I bought the two packets of arsenic, on each occasion at
my wife's own request. On the first occasion she told me
the poison was wanted by the gardener for use in the conservatories. On the second occasion she said it was required
by the cook for ridding the lower part of the house of rats.
"I handed both packets of arsenic to my wife immediately
on my return home. I had nothing to do with the poison
after buying it. My wife was the person who gave orders to
the gardener and cook-not I. I never held any communication with.either of them.
" I asked my wife no questions about the use of the arsenic, feeling no interest in the subject. I never entered the
conservatories for months together; I care little about flowers. As for the rats, I left the killing of them to the cook and
the other servants, just as I should have left any other part
of the domestic business to the cook and the other servants.
" My wife never told me she wanted the arsenic to improve
her complexion. Surely I should be the last person admitted
to the knowledge of such a secret of her toilet as that? I
implicitly believed what she told me, viz., that the poison was
wanted for the purposes specified 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 ex



THE LAW AND THE LADY.              135
actly as I found it in the bottle. I afterward gave her the
cup of tea exactly as I received it fiom 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 warmed to the man who had
moved his chair against the bedside table-the man who
had struggled to the last to defend Eustace's papers from the
wretches who had seized them. I decided then and there
that the first person to whom I would confide my aspirations
and my hopes should be Mr. Dexter. If he felt any difficulty
about advising me, I would then apply next to the agent,
Mr. Playmore-the second good friend, who had formally protested against the seizure of my husband's papers.
Fortified by this resolution, I turned the page, and read
the history of the third day of the Trial.



136            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THIRD QUESTION-WHAT WAS HIS MOTIVE?
THE first question (Did the Woman Die Poisoned?) had
been answered, positively. The second question (Who Poisoned Her?) had been answered,-apparently. There now remained the third and final question —What was His Motive?
The first evidence called in answer to that inquiry was the
evidence of relatives and friends of the dead wife.
Lady Brydehaven, widow of Rear-Admiral Sir George
Brydehaven, examined by Mr. Drew (counsel for the Crown
with the Lord Advocate), gave evidence as follows:
" The deceased lady (Mrs. Eustace Macallan) was my niece.
She was the only child of my sister, and she lived under my
roof after the time of her mother's death. I objected to her
marriage, on grounds which were considered purely fanciful
and sentimental by her other friends. It is extremely painful to me to state the circumstances in public, but I am ready
to make the sacrifice if the ends of justice require it.
" The prisoner at the bar, at the time of which I am now
speaking, was staying as a guest in my house. He met with
an accident while he was out riding which caused a serious
injury to one of his legs. The leg had been previously hurt
while he was serving with the army in India. This circumstance tended greatly to aggravate the injury received in the
accident. He was confined to a recumbent position on a sofa
for many weeks together; and the ladies in the house took it
in turns to sit with him, and while away the weary time by
reading to him and talking to him. My niece was foremost
among these volunteer nurses. She played admirably on the
piano; and the sick man happened-most unfortunately, as
the event proved-to be fond of music.
"The consequences of the perfectly innocent intercourse
thus begun were deplorable consequences for my niece. She
became passionately attached to Mr. Eustace Macallan, without awakening any corresponding affection on his side.
" I did my best to interfere, delicately and usefully, while
it was still possible to interfere with advantage. Unhappily,



THE LAW AND THE LADY.              137
my niece refused to place any confidence in me. She persistently denied that she was actuated by any warmer feeling
toward Mr. Macallan than a feeling of friendly interest. This
made it impossible for me to separate them without openly
acknowledging my reason for doing so, and thus producing a
scandal which might have affected my niece's reputation. My
husband was alive at that time; and the one thing I could do
under the circumstances was the thing I did. I requested him
to speak privately to Mr. Macallan, and to appeal to his honor
to help us out of the difficulty without prejudice to my niece.
"Mr. Macallan behaved admirably. He was still helpless.
But he made an excuse for leaving us which it was impossible to dispute. In two days after my husband had spoken
to him. he was removed fiom the house.
" The remedy was well intended; but it came too late, and
it utterly failed. The mischief was done. My niece pined
away visibly; neither medical help nor change of air and
scene did any thing for her. In course of time-after Ml:
Macallan had recovered from the effects of his accident-I
found that she was carrying on a clandestine correspondence
with him by means of her maid. His letters, I am bound to
say, were most considerately and carefully written. Nevertheless, I felt it my duty to stop the correspondence.
" My interference-what else could I do but interfere?brought matters to a crisis. One day my niece was missing
at breakfast-time. The next day we discovered that the
poor infatuated creature had gone to Mr. Macallan's chambers in London, and had been found hidden in his bedroom
by some bachelor friends who came to visit him.
" For this disaster Mr. Macallan was in no respect to blame.
hiearing footsteps outside, he had only time to take measures
for saving her character by concealing her in the nearest room
-and the nearest room happened to be his bed-chamber.
The matter was talked about, of course, and motives were
misinterpreted in the vilest manner. My husband had another private conversation with Mr. Macallan. He again behaved admirably. He publicly declared that my niece had
visited him as his betrothed wife. In a fortnight from that
time he silenced scandal in the one way that was possiblehe married her.
"I was alone in opposing the marriage. I thought it at
the time what it has proved to be since-a fatal mistake.



138            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
"It would have been sad enough if Mr. Macallan had only
married her without a particle of love on his side. But to
make the prospect more hopeless still, he was at that very
time the victim of a misplaced attachment to a lady who was
engaged to another man. I am well aware that he compassionately denied this, just as he compassionately affected to
be in love with my niece when he married her. But his
hopeless admiration of the lady whom I have mentioned was
a matter of fact notorious among his friends. It may not be
amiss to add that her marriage preceded his marriage. He
had irretrievably lost the woman he really loved —he was
without a hope or an aspiration in life-when he took pity
on my niece.
"In conclusion, I can only repeat that no evil which could
have happened (if she had remained a single woman) would
have been comparable, in my opinion, to the evil of such a
marriage as this. Never, I sincerely believe, were two more
ill-assorted persons united in the bonds of matrimony than
the prisoner at the bar and his deceased wife."
The evidence of this witness produced a strong sensation
among the audience, and had a marked effect on the minds
of the jury.  Cross-examination forced Lady Brydehaven
to modify some of her opinions, and to acknowledge that
the hopeless attachment of the prisoner to another woman
was a matter of rumor only. But the facts in her narrative
remained unshaken, and, for that one reason, they invested
the crime charged against the prisoner with an appearance
of possibility, which it had entirely failed to assume during
the earlier part of the Trial.
Two other ladies (intimate friends of Mrs. Eustace Macallan) were called next. They differed from Lady Brydehaven in their opinions on the propriety of the marriage, but
on all the material points they supported her testimony, and
confirmed the serious impression which the first witness had
produced on every person in Court.
The next evidence which the prosecution proposed to put
in was the silent evidence of the letters and the Diary found
at Gleninch.
In answer to a question from the Bench, the Lord Advocate stated that the letters were written by friends of the
prisoner and his deceased wife, and that passages in them
bore directly on the terms on which the two associated it



THE LAW AND THE LADY.              139
their married life. The Diary was still more valuable as
evidence. It contained the prisoner's daily record of domestic events, and of the thoughts and feelings which they
aroused in him at the time.
A most painful scene followed this explanation.
Writing, as I do, long after the events took place, I still
can not prevail upon myself to describe in detail what my
unhappy husband said and did at this distressing period of
the Trial. Deeply affected while Lady Brydehaven was giving her evidence, he had with difficulty restrained himself
from interrupting her. He now lost all control over his
feelings. In piercing tones, which rang through the Court,
he protested against the contemplated violation of his.own
most sacred secrets and his wife's most sacred secrets. "Hang
me, innocent as I am!" he cried, "but spare me that!" The
effect of this terrible outbreak on the audience is repo'ted
to have been indescribable. Some of the women present
were in hysterics. The Judges interfered from the Bench,
but with no good result. Quiet was at length restored by
the Dean of Faculty, who succeeded in soothing the prisoner, and who then addressed the Judges, pleading for indulgence to his unhappy client in most touching and eloquent
language. The speech, a masterpiece of impromptu oratory, concluded with a temperate yet strongly urged protest
against the reading of the papers discovered at Gleninch.
The three Judges retired to consider the legal question
submitted to them. The sitting was suspended for more
than half an hour.
As usual in such cases, the excitement in the Court communicated itself to the crowd outside in the street.  The
general opinion here-led, as it was supposed, by one of the
clerks or other inferior persons connected with the legal proceedings-was decidedly adverse to the prisoner's chance of
escaping a sentence of death. "If the letters and the Diary
are read," said the brutal spokesman of the mob, " the letters
and the Diary will hang him."
On the return of the Judges into Court, it was announced
that they had decided, by a majority of two to one, on permitting the documents in dispute to be produced in evidence.
Each of the Judges, in turn, gave his reasons for the decision
at which he had arrived. This done, the Trial proceeded.
The reading of the extracts from the letters and the extracts
from the Diary began.



THE LAW AND THE LADY.              141
it, the secret of happiness for us women is to be found (alas!
only too often) in such exercise of restraint and resignation
as your old friend now recommends. Think, my dear, over
what I have written, and let me hear from you again."
SECOND CORRESPONDENT: "How can you be so foolish,
Sara, as to waste your love on such a cold-blooded brute as
your husband seems to be? To be sure, I am not married
yet, or perhaps I should not be so surprised at you. But I
shall be married one of these days, and if my husband ever
treat me as Mr. Macallan treats you, I sharl insist on a separation. I declare, I think I would rather be actually beaten, like the women among the lower orders, than be treated
with the polite neglect and contempt which you describe.
I burn with indignation when I think of it. It must be
quite insufferable. Don't bear it any longer, my poor dear.
Leave him, and come and stay with me. My brother is a
lawyer, as you know. I read to him portions of your letter,
and he is of opinion that you might get what he calls a judicial separation. Come and consult him."
THIRD CORRESPONDENT: "You know, my dear Mrs. Macallan, what my experience of men has been. Your letter
does not surprise me in the least. Your husband's conduct
to you points to one conclusion. He is in love with some
other woman. There is Somebody in the dark, who gets
from him every thing that he denies to you. I have been
through it all-and I know! Don't give way. Make it the
business of your life to find out who the creature is. Perhaps there may be more than one of them. It doesn't matter. One or many, if you can only discover them, you may
make his existence as miserable to him as he makes your existence to you. If you want my experience to help you, say
the word, and it is freely at your service. I can come and
stay with you at Gleninch any time after the fourth of next
month."
With those abominable lines the readings from the letters
of the women came to an end. The first and longest of the
Extracts produced the most vivid impression in Court. Evidently the writer was in this case a worthy and sensible person. It was generally felt, however, that all three of the
letters, no matter how widely they might differ in tone, justified the same conclusion. The wife's position at Gleninch



142            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
(if the wife's account of it were to be trusted) was the position of a neglected and an unhappy woman.
The correspondence of the prisoner, which had been found,
with his Diary, in the locked bed-table drawer, was produced
next. The letters in this case were with one exception all
written by men. Though the tone of them was moderation
itself as compared with the second and third of the women's
letters, the conclusion still pointed the same way. The life
of the husband at Gleninch appeared to be just as intolerable as the life of the wife.
For example, one of the prisoner's male friends wrote inviting him to make a yacht voyage around the world. Another suggested an absence of six months on the Continent.
A third recommended field-sports and fishing. The one object aimed at by all the writers was plainly to counsel a
separation, more or less plausible and more or less complete,
between the married pair.
The last letter read was addressed to the prisoner in a
woman's handwriting, and was signed by a woman's Christian name only.
"Ah, my poor Eustace, what a cruel destiny is ours!" the
letter began. "When I think of your life, sacrificed to that
wretched woman, my heart bleeds for you. If we had been
man and wife-if it had been my unutterable happiness to
love and cherish the best, the dearest of men-what a paradise of our own we might have lived in! what delicious hours
we might have known! But regret is vain; we are separated in this life-separated by ties which we both mourn,
and yet which we must both respect. My Eustace, there is
a world beyond this. There our souls will fly to meet each
other, and mingle in one long heavenly embrace-in a rapture
forbidden to us on earth. The misery described in your letter-oh, why, why did you marry her?-has wrung this confession of feeling from me. Let it comfort you, but let no
other eyes see it. Burn my rashly written lines, and look
(as I look) to the better life which you may yet share with
your own                                  HELENA."
The reading of this outrageous letter provoked a question
from the Bench. One of the Judges asked if the writer had
attached any date or address to her letter.
In answer to this the Lord Advocate stated that neither



THE LAW AND THE LADY.              143
the one nor the other appeared. The envelope showed that
the letter had been posted in London. "We propose," the
learned counsel continued, "to read certain passages from
the prisoner's Diary, in which the name signed at the end of
the letter occurs more than once; and we may possibly find
other means of identifying the writer, to the satisfaction of
your lordships, before the Trial is over."
The promised passages fiom my husband's private Diary
were now read. The first extract related to a period of nearly a year before the death of Mrs. Eustace Macallan's death.
It was expressed in these terms:
"News, by this morning's post, which has quite overwhelmed me. Helena's husband died suddenly two days
since of heart-disease. She is fiee-my beloved Helena is
fiee! AndI?
" I am fettered to a woman with whom I have not a single
feeling in common. Helena is lost to me, by my own act.
Ah! I can understand now, as I never understood before,
how irresistible temptation can be, and how easily sometimes
crime may follow it. I had better shut up these leaves for
the night. It maddens me to no purpose to think of my
position or to write of it."
The next passage, dated a few days later, dwelt on the
same subject.
" Of all the follies that a man can commit, the greatest is
acting on impulse. I acted on impulse when I married the
unfortunate creature who is now my wife.
"Helena was then lost to me, as I too hastily supposed.
She had married the man to whom she rashly engaged her,
self before she met with me. He was younger than I, and,
to all appearance, heartier and stronger than I. So far as I
could see, my fate was sealed for life. Helena had written
her farewell letter, taking leave of me in this world for good.
My prospects were closed; my hopes had ended. I had not
an aspiration left; I had no necessity to stimulate me to take
refuge in work. A chivalrous action, an exertion of noble
self-denial, seemed to be all that was left to me, all that I
was fit for.
"The circumstances of the moment adapted themselves,
with a fatal facility, to this idea. The ill-fated woman who
had become attached to me (Heaven knows without so much
as the shadow of encouragement on my part!) had, just at



144            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
that time, rashly placed her reputation at the mercy of the
world. It rested with me to silence the scandalous tongues
that reviled her. With Helena lost to me, happiness was
not to be expected. All women were equally indifferent to
me. A generous action would be the salvation of this woman. Why not perform it? I married her on that impulse
-married her just as I might have jumped into the water
and saved her if she had been drowning; just as I might
have knocked a man down if I had seen him ill-treating her
in the street!
"And now the woman for whom I have made this sacrifice stands between me and my Helena-my Helena, free to
pour out all the treasures of her love on the man who adores
the earth that she touches with her foot!
"'Fool! madman! Why don't I dash out my brains
against the wall that I see opposite to me while I write
these lines?
"My gun is there in the corner. I have only to tie a string
to the trigger and to put the muzzle to my mouth-  No!
My mother is alive; my mother's love is sacred. I have no
right to take the life which she gave me. I must suffer and
submit. Oh, Helena! Helena!"
The third extract -one among many similar passageshad been written about two months before the death of the
prisoner's wife. "More reproaches addressed to me! There
never was such a woman for complaining; she lives in a perfect atmosphere of 1ll-temper and discontent.
"' My new offenses are two in number: I never ask her to
play to me now; and when she puts on a new dress expressly to please me, I never notice it. Notice it! Good Heavens! The effort of my life is not to notice her in any thing
she does or says. How could I keep my temper, unless I
kept as much as possible out of the way of private interviews
with her? And I do keep my temper. I am never hard on
her; I never use harsh language to her. She has a double
claim on my forbearance-she is a woman, and the law has
made her my wife. I remember this; but I am human.
The less I see of her-except when visitors are present-the
more certain I can feel of preserving my self-control.
"I wonder what it is that makes her so utterly distasteful
to me? She is a plain woman; but I have seen uglier women
than she whose caresses I could have endured without the



THE LAW AND THE LADY.              145
sense of shrinking that comes over me when I am obliged to
submit to her caresses. I keep the feeling hidden from her.
She loves me, poor thing-and I pity her. I wish I could do
more; I wish I could return in the smallest degree the feeling with which she regards me. But no-I can only pity
her. If she would be content to live on friendly terms with
me, and never to exact demonstrations of tenderness, we
might get on pretty well. But she wants love. Unfortunate creature, she wants love!
" Oh, my Helena! I have no love to give her. My heart
is yours.
" I dreamed last night that this unhappy wife of mine was
dead. The dream was so vivid that I actually got out of my
bed and opened the door of her room and listened.
"Her calm, regular breathing was distinctly audible in the
stillness of the night. She was in a deep sleep. I closed the
door again, and lit my candle and read. Helena was in all
my thoughts; it was hard work to fix my attention on the
book. But any thing was better than going to bed again,
and dreaming perhaps for the second time that I too was free.' What a life mine is! what a life my wife's is! If the
house were to take fire, I wonder whether I should make an
effort to save myself or to save her?"
The last two passages read referred to later dates still.
"A gleam of brightness has shone over this dismal existence of mine at last.
" Helena is no longer condemned to the seclusion of widowhood. Time enough has passed to permit of her mixing
again in society. She is paying visits to friends in our part
of Scotland; and, as she and I are cousins, it is universally
understood that she can not leave the North without also
spending a few days at my house. She writes me word that
the visit, however embarrassing it may be to us privately, is
nevertheless a visit that must be made for the sake of appearances. Blessings on appearances! I shall see this angel in
my purgatory-and all because Society in Mid-Lothian would
think it strange that my cousin should be visiting in my part
of Scotland and not visit Me!
"But we are to be very careful. Helena says, in so many
words,'I come to see you, Eustace, as a sister. You must
receive me as a brother, or not receive me at all. I shall
write to your wife to propose the day for my visit. I shall



146            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
not forget-do you not forget-that it is by your wife's permission that I enter your house.'
"Only let me see her! I will submit to any thing to obtain the unutterable happiness of seeing her!"
The last extract followed, and consisted of these lines only:
"A  new misfortune! My wife has fallen ill. She has
taken to her bed with a bad rheumatic cold, just at the time
appointed for Helena's visit to Gleninch. But on this occasion (I gladly own it!) she has behaved charmingly. She
has written to Helena to say that her illness is not serious
enough to render a change necessary in the arrangements,
and to make it her particular request that my cousin's visit
shall take place upon the day originally decided on.
"This is a great sacrifice made to me on my wife's part.
Jealous of every woman under forty who comes near me, she
is, of course, jealous of Helena —and she controls herself, and
trusts me!
"I am bound to show my gratitude for this, and I will
show it. From this day forth I vow to live more affectionately with my wife. I tenderly embraced her this very
morning, and I hope, poor soul, she did not discover the effort that it cost me."
There the readings from the Diary came to an end.
The most unpleasant pages in the whole Report of the
Trial were-to me-the pages which contained the extracts
from my husband's Diary. There were expressions here and
there which not only pained me, but which almost shook
Eustace's position in my estimation. I think I would have
given every thing I possessed to have had the power of annihilating certain lines in the Diary. As for his passionate
expressions of love for Mrs. Beauly, every one of them went
through me like a sting. He had whispered words quite as
warm into my ears in the days of his courtship. I had no
reason to doubt that he truly and dearly loved me. But the
question was, Had he just as truly and dearly loved Mrs.
Beauly before me? Had she or I won the first love of his
heart? He had declared to me over and over again that he
had only fancied himself to be in love before the day when
we met. I had believed him then. I determined to believe
him still. I did believe him. But I hated Mrs. Beauly!
As for the painful impression produced in Court by the



148            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
tain of the identity of the lady who was talking with my
master. Mlrs. Beauly was a comely person-and there was
no mistaking her for any other than herself. She and my
master withdrew together on the way to the house. I heard
nothing more of what passed between them."
This witness was severely cross-examined as to the correctness of his recollection of the talk in the summer-house,
and as to his capacity for identifying both the speakers. On
certain minor points he was shaken. But he firmly asserted
his accurate remembrance of the last words exchanged between his master and Mrs. Beauly; and he personally described the lady in terms which proved that he had correctly identified her.
With this the answer to the third question raised by the
Trial-the question of the prisoner's motive for poisoning
his wife-came to an end.
The story for the prosecution was now a story told. The
stanchest friends of the plisoner in Court were compelled to
acknowledge that the evidence thus far pointed clearly and
conclusively against him. He seemed to feel this himself.
When he withdrew at the close of the third day of the Trial
he was so depressed and exhausted that he was obliged to
lean on the arm of the governor of the jail.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE EVIDENCE FOR THE DEFENSE.
THE feeling of interest excited by the Trial was prodigiously increased on the fourth day. The witnesses for the
defense were now to be heard, and first and foremost among
them appeared the prisoner's mother.  She looked at her
son as she lifted her veil to take the oath. He burst into
tears. At that moment the sympathy felt for the mother
was generally extended to the unhappy son.
Examined by the Dean of Faculty, Mrs. AIacallan the elder gave her answers with remarkable dignity and self-control.
Questioned as to certain private conversations which had
passed between her late daughter-in-law and herself, she declared that Mrs. Eustace Macallan was morbidly sensitive



iLiSL   I  I
SHE LOOKED AT HER SON AS SHE LIFTED HER VEIL TO TAKE THE OATH.






THE LAW AND THE LADY.               149
on the subject of her personal appearance. She was devotedly attached to her husband; the great anxiety of her life
was to make herself as attractive to him as possible. The
imperfections in her personal appearance —and especially in
her complexion-were subjects to her of the bitterest regret.
The witness had heard her say, over and over again (referring to her complexion), that there was no risk she would not
run, and no pain she would not suffer, to improve it. "Men"
(she had said) " are all caught by outward appearances: my
husband might love me better if I had a better color."
Being asked next if the passages from her son's Diary
were to be depended on as evidence-that is to say, if they
fairly represented the peculiarities in his character, and his
true sentiments toward his wife-Mrs. Macallan denied it in
the plainest and strongest terms.
"The extracts fiom my son's Diary are a libel on his
character," she said. " And not the less a libel because they
happen to be written by himself. Speaking from a mother's
experience of him, I know that he must have written the
passages produced in moments of uncontrollable depression
and despair. No just person judges hastily of a man by the
rash words which may escape him in his moody and miserable moments. Is my son to be so judged because he happens to have written his rash words, instead of speaking
them? His pen has been his most deadly enemy, in this
case-it has presented him at his very worst. He was not
happy in his marriage-I admit that. But I say at the same
time that he was invariably considerate toward his wife. I
was implicitly trusted by both of them; I saw them in their
most private moments. I declare - in the face of what she
appears to have written to her friends and correspondents
-that my son never gave his wife any just cause to assert
that he treated her with cruelty or neglect."
The words, firmly and clearly spoken, produced a strong
impression. The Lord Advocate-evidently perceiving that
any attempt to weaken that impression would not be likely
to succeed-confined himself, in cross-examination, to two
significant questions.
"In speaking to you of the defects in her complexion," he
said," did your daughter-in-law refer in any way to the use
of arsenic as a remedy?"
The answer to this was, " No."
G2



150            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
The Lord Advocate proceeded:
" Did you yourself ever recommend arsenic, or mention it
casually, in the course of the private conversations which
you have described?"
The answer to this was, "Never."
The Lord Advocate resumed his seat. Mrs. Macallan the
elder withdrew.
An interest of a new kind was excited by the appearance
of the next witness. This was no less a person than Mlr's.
Beauly herself. The Report describes her as a remarkably
attractive person; modest and lady-like in her manner, and,
to all appearance, feeling sensitively the public position in
which she was placed.
The first portion of her evidence was almost a recapitulation of the evidence given by the prisoner's mother - with
this difference, that Mrs. Beauly had been actually questioned by the deceased lady on the subject of cosmetic applications to the complexion. Mrs. Eustace Macallan had
complimented her on the beauty of her complexion, and had
asked what artificial means she used to keep it in such good
order. Using no artificial means, and knowing nothing whatever of cosmetics, Mrs. Beauly had resented the question, and
a temporary coolness between the two ladies had been the
result.
Interrogated as to her relations with the prisoner, Mrs.
Beauly indignantly denied that she or Mr. Macallan had
ever given the deceased lady the slightest cause for jealousy.
It was impossible for Mrs. Beauly to leave Scotland, after
visiting at the houses of her cousin's neighbors, without also
visiting at her cousin's house. To take any other course
would have been an act of downright rudeness, and would
have excited remark. She did not deny that Mr. Macallan
had admired her in the days when they were both single
people. But there was no further expression of that feeling
when she had married another man, and when he had married another woman. From that time their intercourse was
the innocent intercourse of a brother and sister. Mr. Macallan was a gentleman: he knew what was due to his wife
and to Mrs. Beauly-she would not have entered the house
if experience had not satisfied her of that. As for the evidence of the under-gardener, it was little better than pure
invention. The greater part of the conversation which he



THE LAW AND THE LADY.               151
had described himself as overhearing had never taken place.
The little that was really said (as the man reported it) was
said jestingly; and she had checked it immediately-as the
witness had himself confessed. For the rest, Mr. Macallan's
behavior toward his wife was invariably kind and considerate. He was constantly devising means to alleviate her sufferings from the rheumatic affection which confined her to
her bed; he had spoken of her, not once but many times,
in terms of the sincerest sympathy. When she ordered her
husband and witness to leave the room, on the day of her
death, Mr. Macallan said to witness afterward, " We must
bear with her jealousy, poor soul: we know that we don't
deserve it." In that patient manner he submitted to her infirmities of temper from first to last.
The main interest in the cross-examination of Mrs. Beauly
centred in a question which was put at the end. After reminding her that she had given her name, on being sworn,
as "Helena Beauly," the Lord Advocate said:
"A letter addressed to the prisoner, and signed'Helena,'
has been read in Court. Look at it, if you please. Are you
the writer of that letter?"
Before the witness could reply the Dean of Faculty protested against the question. The Judges allowed the protest, and refused to permit the question to be put. Mrs.
Beauly thereupon withdrew. She had betrayed a very perceptible agitation on hearing the letter referred to, and on
having it placed in her hands. This exhibition of feeling
was variously interpreted among the audience. Upon the
whole, however, Mrs. Beauly's evidence was considered to
have aided the impression which the mother's evidence had
produced in the prisoner's favor.
The next witnesses-both ladies, and both school friends
of Mrs. Eustace Macallan —created a new feeling of interest
in Court. They supplied the missing link in the evidence
for the defense.
The first of the ladies declared that she had mentioned
arsenic as a means of improving the complexion in conversation with Mrs. Eustace Macallan. She had never used it
herself, but she had read of the practice of eating arsenic
among the Styrian peasantry for the purpose of clearing the
color, and of producing a general -appearance of plumpness
and good health. She positively swore that she had related



152            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
this result of her reading to the deceased lady exactly as
she now related it in Court.
The second witness, present at the conversation already
mentioned, corroborated the first witness in every particular; and added that she had procured the book relating to
the arsenic-eating practices of the Styrian peasantry, and
their results, at Mrs. Eustace Macallan's own request. This
book she had herself dispatched by post to Mrs. Eustace
Macallan at Gleninch.
There was but one assailable point in this otherwise conclusive evidence. The cross-examination discovered it.
Both the ladies were asked, in turn, if Mrs. Eustace Macallan had expressed to them, directly or indirectly, any intention of obtaining arsenic, with a view to the improvement
of her complexion. In each case the answer to that all-important question was, No. Mrs. Eustace Macallan had heard
of the remedy, and had received the book. But of her own
intentions in the future she had not said one word.'She had
begged both the ladies to consider the conversation as strictly private-and there it had ended.
It required no lawyer's eye to discern the fatal defect
which was now revealed in the evidence for the defense.
Every intelligent person present could see that the prisoner's chance of an honorable acquittal depended on tracing
the poison to the possession of his wife-or at least on proving her expressed intention to obtain it. In either of these
cases the prisoner's Declaration of his innocence would claim
the support of testimony, which, however indirect it might
be, no honest and intelligent men would be likely to. resist.
Was that testimony forthcoming? Was the counsel for the
defense not at the end of his resources yet?
The crowded audience waited in breathless expectation
for the appearance of the next witness. A whisper went
round among certain well-instructed persons that the Court
was now to see and hear the prisoner's old fiiend - already
often referred to in the course of the Trial as " Mr. Dexter."
After a brief interval of delay there was a sudden commotion among the audience, accompanied by suppressed exclamations of curiosity and surprise. At the same moment
the crier summoned the new witness by the extraordinary
name of
" /IISERRIMUS DEXTER."



THE LAW AND THE LADY.              153
CHAPTER XX.
THE END OF THE TRIAL.
THE calling of the new witness provoked a burst of laughter among the audience-due partly, no doubt, to the strange.
name by which he had been summoned; partly, also, to the
instinctive desire of all crowded assemblies, when their interest is painfully excited, to seize on any relief in the shape
of the first subject of merriment which may present itself.
A severe rebuke from the Bench restored order among the
audience. The Lord Justice Clerk declared that he would
"clear the Court" if the interruption to the proceedings
were renewed.
During the silence which followed this announcement the
new witness appeared.
Gliding, self-propelled in his chair on wheels, through the
opening made for him among the crowd, a strange and startling creature-literally the half of a man-revealed himself
to the general view. A coverlet which had been thrown
over his chair had fallen off during his progress through the
throng. The loss of it exposed to the public curiosity the
head, the arms, and the trunk of a living human being: absolutely deprived of the lower limbs. To make this deformity all the more striking and all the more terrible, the victim
of it was-as to his face and his body —an unusually handsome and an unusually well-made man. His long silky hair,
of a bright and beautiful chestnut color, fell over shoulders
that were the perfection of strength and grace. His face
was bright with vivacity and intelligence. His large clear
blue eyes and his long delicate white hands were like the
eyes and hands of a beautiful woman. He would have
looked effeminate but for the manly proportions of his throat
and chest, aided in their effect by his flowing beard and long
mustache, of a lighter chestnut shade than the color of his
hair. Never had a magnificent head and body been more
hopelessly ill-bestowed than in this instance! Never had
Nature committed a more careless or a more cruel mistake
than in the making of this man!



154            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
He was sworn, seated, of course, in his chair. Having
given his name, he bowed to the Judges, and requested their
permission to pref'ace his evidence with a word of explanation.
"People generally laugh when they first hear my strange
Christian name," he said, in a low, clear, resonant voice which
penetrated to the remotest corners of the Court. "I may
inform the good people here that many names, still common
among us, have their significations, and that mine is one of
them.'Alexander,' for instance, means, in the Greek,'a
helper of men.'' David' means, in Hebrew,' well-beloved.'' Francis' means, in German,' free.' My nameh'Miserrimus,'
means, in Latin'most unhappy.' It was given to me by my
father, in allusion to the deformity which you all see-the
deformity with which it was my misfortune to be born. You
won't latgh at'Miserrimus' again, will you?" He turned to
the Dean of Faculty, waiting to examine him for the defense.
"Mr. Dean, I am at your service. I apologize for delaying,
even for a moment, the proceedings of the Court."
He delivered his little address with perfect grace and goodhumor. Examined by the Dean, he gave his evidence clearly, without the slightest appearance of hesitation or reserve.
"I was staying at Gleninch as a guest in the house at the
time of Mrs. Eustace Macallan's death," he began. "Doctor
Jerome and Mr. Gale desired to see me at a private interview
-the prisoner being then in a state of prostration which
made it impossible for him to attend to his duties as master
of the house. At this interview the two doctors astonished
and horrified me by declaring that Mrs. Eustace Macallan
had died poisoned. They left it to me to communicate the
dreadful news to her husband, and they warned me that a
post-mortem examination must be held on the body.
"If the Fiscal had seen my old friend when I communicated the doctors' message, I doubt if he would have ventured
to charge the prisoner with the mutder of his wife. To my
mind the charge was nothing less than an outrage. I resisted the seizure of the prisoner's.Diary and letters, animated
by that feeling. Now that the Diary has been produced, I
agree with the prisoner's mother in denying that it is fair
evidence to bring against him. A Diary (when it extends
beyond a bare record of facts and dates) is nothing but an
expression of the poorest and weakest side in the character



THE LAW AND THE LADY.              155
of the person who, keeps it. It is, in nine cases out of ten, the
more or less contemptible outpouring of vanity and conceit
which the writer dare not exhibit to any mortal but himself.
I am the prisoner's oldest friend. I solemnly declare that I
never knew he could write downright nonsense until I heard
his Diary read in this Court!
"He kill his wife! lge treat his wife with neglect and
cruelty! I venture to say, fiom twenty years' experience
of him, that there is no man in this assembly who is constitutionally more incapable of crime and more incapable of
cruelty than the man who stands at the Bar. While I am
about it, I go farther still. I even doubt whether a man capable of crime and capable of cruelty could have found it in
his heart to do evil to the woman whose untimely death is
the subject of this inquiry.
"I have heard what the ignorant and prejudiced nurse,
Christina Ormsay, has said of the deceased lady. From my
own personal observation, I contradict every word of it.
Mrs. Eustace Macallan-granting her personal defects-was
nevertheless one of the most charming women I ever met
with. She was highly bred, in the best sense of the word.
I never saw in any other person so sweet a smile as hers, or
such grace and beauty of movement as hers. If you liked
music, she sang beautifully; and few professed musicians had
such a touch on the piano as hers. If you preferred talking,
I never yet met with the man (or even the woman, which is
saying a great deal more) whom her conversation could not
charm. To say that such a wife as this could be first cruelly
neglected, and then barbarously murdered, by the man-no!
by the martyr —who stands there, is to tell me that the sun
never shines at noonday, or that the heaven is not above the
earth.
" Oh yes! I know that the letters of her fiiends show that
she wrote to them in bitter complaint of her husband's conduct to her. But remember what one of those fiiends (the
wisest and the best of them) says in reply.' I own to thinking,' she writes,'that your sensitive nature exaggerates or
misinterprets the neglect that you experience at the hands
of your husband.' There, in that one sentence, is the whole
truth! Mrs. Eustace Macallan's nature was the imaginative,
self-tormenting nature of a poet. No mortal love could ever
have been refined enough for her. Trifles which women of a



156            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
coarser moral fibre would have passed over without notice,
were causes of downright agony to that exquisitely sensitive
temperament. There are persons born to be unhappy. That
poor lady was one of them. When I have said this, I have
said all.
"No! There is one word more still to be added.
"It may be as well to remind the prosecution that Mrs.
Eustace Macallan's death was in the pecuniary sense a serious loss to her husband. He had insisted on having the whole
of her fortune settled on herself, and on her relatives after
her, when he married. Her income from that fortune helped
to keep in splendor the house and grounds at Gleninch. The
prisoner's own resources (aided even by his mother's jointure) were quite inadequate fitly to defiay the expenses of
living at his splendid country-seat. Knowing all the circumstances, I can positively assert that the wife's death has
deprived the husband of two thirds of his income. And the
prosecution, viewing him as the basest and cruelest of men,
declares that he deliberately killed her-with all his pecuniary interests pointing to the preservation of her life!
"'It is useless to ask me whether I noticed any thing in
the conduct of the prisoner and Mrs. Beauly which might
justify a wife's jealousy. I never observed Mrs. Beauly with
any attention, and I never encouraged the prisoner in talking to me about her. He was a general admirer of pretty
women-so far as I know, in a perfectly innocent way. That
he could prefer Mrs. Beauly to his wife is inconceivable to
me, unless he were out of his senses. I never had any reason
to believe that he was out of his senses.
"As to the question of the arsenic-I mean the question
of tracing that poison to the possession of Mrs. Eustace Macallan-I am able to give evidence which may, perhaps, be
worthy of the attention of the Court.
" I was present in the Fiscal's office during the examination
of the papers, and of the other objects discovered at Gleninch. The dressing-case belonging to the deceased lady was
shown to me after its contents had been officially investigated by the Fiscal himself. I happen to have a very sensitive
sense of touch. In handling the lid of the dressing-case, on
the inner side I felt something at a certain place which induced me to examine the whole structure of the lid veryT
carefully. The result was the discovery of a private reposit



THE LAW AND. THE LADY.             157
tory concealed in the space between the outer wood'and the
lining. In that repository I found the bottle which I now
produce."
The further examination of the witness was suspended
while the hidden bottle was compared with the bottles properly belonging to the dressing-case.
These last were of the finest cut glass, and of a very elegant form —entirely unlike the bottle found in the private
repository, which was of the commonest manufacture, and of
the shape ordinarily in use among chemists. Not a drop of
liquid, not the smallest atom of any solid substance, remained
in it. No smell exhaled from it-and, more unfortunately
still for the interests of the defense, no label was found at.
tached to the bottle when it had been discovered.
The chemist who had sold the second supply of arsenic to
the prisoner was recalled and examined. He declared that
the bottle was exactly like the bottle in which he had placed
the arsenic. It was, however, equally like hundreds of other
bottles in his shop. In the absence of the label (on which he
had himself written the word "Poison "), it was impossible
for him to identify the bottle. The dressing-case and the
deceased lady's bedroom had been vainly searched for the
chemist's missing label-on the chance that it might have
become accidentally detached from the mysterious empty
bottle. In both instances the search had been without result. Morally, it was a fair conclusion that this might be
really the bottle which had contained the poison. Legally,'there was not the slightest proof of it.
Thus ended the last effort of the defense to trace the arsenic purchased by the prisoner to the possession of his wife.
The book relating the practices of the Styrian peasantry
(found in the deceased lady's room) had been produced. But
could the book prove that she had asked her husband to buy
arsenic for her? The crumpled paper, with the grains of
powder left in it, had been identified by the chemist, and had
been declared to contain grains of arsenic. But where was
the proof that Mrs. Eustace Macallan's hand had placed the
packet in the cabinet, and had emptied it of its contents?
No direct evidence any where! Nothing but conjecture!
The renewed examination of Miserrimus Dexter touched
on matters of no general interest.  The cross-examination
resolved itself, in substance, into a mental trial of strength



15 8           THE LAW AND THE LADY.
between the witness and the Lord Advocate; the struggle
terminating (according to the general opinion) in favor of the
witness. One question and one answer only I will repeat
here. They appeared to me to be of serious importance to
the object that I had in view in reading the Trial.
"I believe, Mr. Dexter," the Lord Advocate remarked, in
his most ironical manner, " that you have a theory of your
own, which makes the death of Mrs. Eustace Macallan no
mystery to you?"
"I may have my own ideas on that subject, as on other
subjects," the witness replied. "'But let me ask their lordships, the Judges: Am I here to declare theories or to state
facts?"
I made a note of that answer. Mr. Dexter's " ideas " were
the ideas of a true fiiend to my husband, and of a man of far
more than average ability. They might be of inestimable
value to me in the coming time —if I could prevail on him
to communicate them.
I may mention, while I am writing on the subject, that I
added to this first note a second, containing an observation
of my own. In alluding to Mrs. Beauly, while he was giving
his evidence, Mr. Dexter had spoken of her so slightinglyso rudely, I might almost say-as to suggest he had some
strong private reasons for disliking (perhaps for distrusting)
this lady. Here, again, it might be of vital importance to
me to see Mr. Dexter, and to clear up, if I could, what the
dignity of the Court had passed over without notice.
The last witness had been now examined. The chair on
wheels glided away with the half-man in it, and was lost in
a distant corner of the Court. The Lord Advocate rose to
address the Jury for the prosecution.
I do not scruple to say that I never read any thing so infamous as this great lawyer's speech. He was not ashamed
to declare, at starting, that he firlmly believed the prisoner to
be guilty. What right had he to say any thing of the sort?
Was it for him to decide? Was he the Judge and Jury both,
I should like to know? Having begun by condemning the
prisoner on his own authority, the Lord Advocate proceeded
to pervert the most innocent actions of that unhappy man so
as to give them as vile an aspect as possible. Thus: When
Eustace kissed his poor wife's forehead on her death-bed, he



THE LAW AND THE LADY.              159
did it to create a favorable impression in the minds of the
doctor and the nurse! Again, when his grief under his bereavement completely overwhelmed him, he was triumphing
in secret, and acting a part! If you looked into his heart,
you would see there a diabolical hatred for his wife and an
infatuated passion for Mrs. Beauly! In every thing he had
said he had lied; in every thing he had done he had acted like
a crafty and heartless wretch! So the chief counsel for the
prosecution spoke of the prisoner, standing helpless before
him at the Bar. In my husband's place, if I could have done
nothing more, I would have thrown something at his head.
As it was, I tore the pages which contained the speech for
the prosecution out of the Report, and trampled them under
my feet —and felt all the better too for having done it. At
the same time I feel a little ashamed of having revenged myself on the harmless printed leaves now.
The fifth day of the Trial opened with the speech for the
defense. Ah, what a contrast to the infamies uttered by the
Loird Advocate was the grand burst of eloquence by the Dean
of Faculty, speaking on my husband's side!
This illustrious lawyer struck the right note at starting.
"I yield to no one," he began, "in the pity I feel for the
wife. But I say, the martyr in this case, fiom first to last, is
the husband. Whatever the poor woman may have endured,
that unhappy man at the Bar has suffered, and is now suffering, more. If he had not been the kindest of men, the most
docile and most devoted of husbands, he would never have
occupied his present dreadful situation. A man of a meaner
and harder nature would have felt suspicion of his wife's motives when she asked him to buy poison-would have seen
through the wretchedly commonplace excuses she made for
wanting it-and would have wisely and cruelly said,'No.'
The prisoner is not that sort of man. He is too good to his
wife, too innocent of any evil thought toward her, or toward
any one, to foresee the inconveniences and the dangers to
which his fatal compliance may expose him.  And what is
the result? He stands there, branded as a murderer, because
he was too high-minded and too honorable to suspect his
wife."
Speaking thus of the husband, the Dean was just as eloquent and just as unanswerable when he came to speak of
the wife.



160            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
"The Lord Advocate," he said, "has asked, with the bitter irony for which he is celebrated at the Scottish Bar, why
we have failed entirely to prove that the prisoner placed the
two packets of poison in the possession of his wife. I say, in
answer, we have proved, first, that the wife was passionately
attached to the husband; secondly, that she felt bitterly the
defects in her personal appearance, and especially the defects
in her complexion; and, thirdly, that she was informed of arsenic as a supposed remedy for those defects, taken internally.
To men who know any thing of human nature, there is proof
enough. Does my learned fiiend actually suppose that women are in the habit of mentioning the secret artifices and applications by which they improve their personal appearance?
Is it in his experience of the sex that a woman who is eagerly bent on making herself attractive to a man would tell that
man, or tell any body else who might communicate with him,
that the charm by which she hoped to win his heart —say the
charm of a pretty complexion-had been artificially acquired
by the perilous use of a deadly poison? The bare idea of
such a thing is absurd. Of course nobody ever heard Mrs.
Eustace Macallan speak of arsenic. Of course nobody ever
surprised her in the act of taking arsenic. It is in the evidence that she would not even confide her intention to try
the poison to the friends who had told her of it as a remedy,
and who had got her the book. She actually begged them
to consider their brief conversation on the subject as strictly
private. From first to last, poor creature, she kept her secret; just as she would have kept her secret if she had worn
false hair, or if she had been indebted to the dentist for her
teeth. And there you see her husband, in peril of his life,
because a woman acted like a woman-as your wives, gentlemen of the Julry, would, in a similar position, act toward
You."
After such glorious oratory as this (I wish I had room to
quote more of it!), the next, and last, speech delivered at the
Trial-that is to say, the Charge of the Judge to the Juryis dreary reading indeed.
His lordship first told the Jury that they could not expect
to have direct evidence of the poisoning.  Such evidence
hardly ever occurred in cases of poisoning. They must be
satisfied with the best circumstantial evidence. All quite
true, I dare say. But, having told the Jury they might ac



THE LAW AND THE LADY.              161
cept circumstantial evidence, he turned back again on his
own words, and warned them against being too ready to
trust it! "You must have evidence satisfactory and convincing to your own minds," he said, "in which you find no
conjectures-but only irresistible and just inferences." Who
is to decide what is a just inference? And what is circumstantial evidence but conjecture?
After this specimen, I need give no further extracts from
the summing up. The Jury, thoroughly bewildered no doubt,
took refuge in a compromise. They occupied an hour in considering and debating among themselves in their own room.
(A jury of women would not have taken a minute!) Then
they returned into Court, and gave their timid and trimming
Scotch Verdict in these words:
"Not Proven."
Some slight applause followed among the audience, which
was instantly checked. The prisoner was dismissed from
the Bar. He slowly retired, like a man in deep grief; his
head sunk on his breast-not looking at any one, and not replying when his friends spoke to him. He knew, poor fellow,
the slur that the Verdict left on him. " We don't say you
are innocent of the crime charged against you; we only say
there is not. evidence enough to convict you." In that lame
and impotent conclusion the proceedings ended at the time,
And there they would have remained for all time-but for
Me.
CHAPTER XXI.
I SEE MY WAY.
IN the gray light of the new morning I closed the Report
of my husband's Trial for the Murder of his first Wife.
No sense of fatigue overpowered me. I had no wish, after
my long hours of reading and thinking, to lie down and sleep.
It was strange, but it was so. I felt as if I had slept, and
had now just awakened —a new woman, with a new mind.
I could now at last understand Eustace's desertion of me.
To a man of his refinement it would have been a martyrdom
to meet his wife after she had read the things published of
him to all the world in the Report. I felt that as he would
have felt it. At the same time I thought he might have



THE LAW AND THE LADY.              163
Had I answers ready if those two plain questions were put
to me? Yes! if I dared own to any human creature what
was at that very moment secretly fermenting in my mind.
Yes! if I could confide to a stranger a suspicion roused in
me by the Trial which I have been thus far afraid to mention
even in these pages!
It must, nevertheless, be mentioned now. My suspicion
led to results which are part of my story and part of my
life.
Let me own, then, to begin with, that I closed the record
of the Trial actually agreeing in one important particular
with the opinion of my enemy and my husband's enemythe Lord Advocate! He had characterized the explanation
of Mrs. Eustace Macallan's death offered by the defense as a
"clumsy subterfuge, in which no reasonable being could discern the smallest fragment of probability." Without going
quite so far as this, I, too, could see no reason whatever in
the evidence for assuming that the poor woman had taken
an overdose of the poison by mistake. I believed that she
had the arsenic secretly in her possession, and that she had
tried, or intended to try, the use of it internally, for the purpose of improving her complexion. But farther than this I
could not advance. The more I thought of it, the more plainly justified the lawyers for the prosecution seemed to me to
be in declaring that Mrs. Eustace Macallan had died by the
hand of a poisoner —although they were entirely and certainly mistaken in charging my husband with the crime.
My husband being innocent, somebody else, on my own
showing, must be guilty. Who among the persons inhabiting
the house at the time had poisoned Mrs. Eustace Macallan?
My suspicion in answering that question pointed straight
to a woman. And the name of that woman was —Mrs.
Beauly!
Yes! To that startling conclusion I had arrived. It was,
to my mind, the inevitable result of reading the evidence.
Look back for a moment to the letter produced in court,
signed "Helena," and addressed to Mr. Macallan. No reasonable person can doubt (though the Judges excused her
firom answering the question) that Mrs. Beauly was the writer.
Very well. The letter offers, as I think, trustworthy evidence
to show the state of the woman's mind when she paid hemi
visit to Gleninch.



164            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
Writing to Mr. Macallan, at a time when she was married
to another man-a man to whom she had engaged herself
before she met with Mr. Macallan-what does she say? She
says, " When I think of your life sacrificed to that wretched
woman, my heart bleeds for you." And, again, she says, "If
it had been my unutterable happiness to love and cherish
the best, the dearest of men, what a paradise of our own we
might have lived in, what delicious hours we might have
known!"
If this is not the language of a woman shamelessly and
furiously in love with a man-not her husband-what is?
She is so full of him that even her idea of another world (see
the letter) is the idea of" embracing " Mr. Macallan's " soul."
In this condition of mind and morals, the lady one day finds
herself and her embraces free, through the death of her husband. As soon as she can decently visit she goes visiting;
and in due course of time she becomes the guest of the man
whom she adores. His wife is ill in her bed. The one other
visitor at Gleninch is a cripple, who can only move in his
chair on wheels. The lady has the house and the one beloved
object in it all to herself. No obstacle stands between her
and "the unutterable happiness of loving and cherishing
the best, the dearest of men" but a poor, sick, ugly wife, for
whom Mr. Macallan never has felt, and never can feel, the
smallest particle of love.
Is it perfectly absurd to believe that such a woman as
this, impelled by these motives, and surrounded by these
circumstances, would be capable of committing a crime-if
the safe opportunity offered itself?
What does her own evidence say?
She admits that she had a conversation with Mrs. Eustace
Macallan, in which that lady " questioned her on the subject
of cosmetic applications to the complexion." Did nothing
else take place at that interview? Did Mrs. Beauly make no
discoveries (afterward turned to fatal account) of the dangerous experiment which her hostess was then trying to improve
her ugly complexion? All we know is that Mrs. Beauly said
nothing about it.
What does the under-gardener say?
He heard a conversation between Mr. Macallan and Mrs.
Beauly, which shows that the possibility of Mrs. Beauly becoming Mrs. Eustace Macallan had certainly presented itself



THE LAW AND THE LADY.              165
to that lady's mind, and was certainly considered by her to
be too dangerous a topic of discourse to be pursued. Inno.
cent Mr. Macallan would have gone on talking. Mrs. Beauly
is discreet, and stops him.
And what does the nurse (Christina Ormsay) tell us?
On the day of Mrs. Eustace Macallan's death, the nurse is
dismissed from attendance, and is sent down-stairs.  She
leaves the sick woman, recovered from her first attack of illness, and able to amuse herself with writing. The nurse remains away for half an hour, and then gets uneasy at not
hearing the invalid's bell. She goes to the Morning-Room
to consult Mr. Macallan, and there she hears that Mrs. Beauly is missing. Mr. Macallan doesn't know where she is,
and asks Mr. Dexter if he has seen her. Mr. Dexter had not
set eyes on her.  At what time does the disappearance of
Mrs. Beauly take place?  At the very time when Christina Ormsay had left Mrs. Eustace Macallan alone in her
room!
Meanwhile the bell rings at last-rings violently. The
nurse goes back to the sick-room at five minutes to eleven,
or thereabouts, and finds that the bad symptoms of the
morning have returned in a gravely aggravated form. A
second dose of poison —larger than the dose administered in
the early morning-has been given during the absence of
the nurse, and (observe) during the disappearance also of
Mrs. Beauly. The nurse, looking out into the corridor for
help, encounters Mrs. Beauly herself, innocently on her way
from her own room-just up, we are to suppose, at eleven in
the morning!-to inquire after the sick woman.
A little later Mrs. Beauly accompanies Mr. Macallan to visit
the invalid. The dying woman casts a strange look at both
of them, and tells them to leave her. Mr. Macallan understands this as the fretful outbreak of a person in pain, and
waits in the room to tell the nurse that the doctor is sent for.
What does Mrs.Beauly do? She runs out panic-stricken
the instant Mrs. Eustace Macallan looks at her. Even Mrs.
Beauly, it seems, has a conscience!
Is there nothing to justify suspicion in such circumstances
as these-circumstances sworn to, on the oaths of the witnesses?
To me the conclusion is plain. Mrs. Beauly's hand gave
that second dose of poison. Admit this; and the inference
H



166            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
follows that she also gave the first dose in the early morning.
How courd she do it?  Look again at the evidence. The
nurse admits that she was asleep from past two in the morning to six. She also speaks of' a locked door of communication with the sick-room, the key of which had been removed,
nobody knew by whom. Some person must have stolen that
key. Why not Mrs. Beauly?
One word more, and all that I had in my mind at that
time'will be honestly revealed.
Miserrimus Dexter, under cross-examination, had indirectly
admitted that he had ideas of his own on the sub ject of Mrs.
Eustace Macallan's death. At the same time he had spoken
of Mrs. Beauly in a tone which plainly betrayed that he was
no fiiend to that lady. Did he suspect her too? My chief
motive in deciding to ask his advice before I applied to any
one else was to find an opportunity of putting that question
to him. If he really thought of her as I did, my course was
clear before me. The next step to take would be carefully
to conceal my identity-and then to present myself, in the
character of a harmless stranger, to Mrs. Beauly.
There were difficulties, of course, in my way. The first
and greatest difficulty was to obtain an introduction to
Miserrimus Dexter.
The composing influence of the fresh air in the garden had
by this time made me readier to lie down and rest than to
occupy my mind in reflecting on my difficulties. Little by
little I grew too drowsy to think-then too lazy to go on
walking. My bed looked wonderfully inviting as I passed
by the open window of my room.
In five minutes more I had accepted the invitation of the
bed, and had said farewell to my anxieties and my troubles.
In five minutes more I was fast asleep.
A discreetly gentle knock at my door was the first sound
that aroused me. I heard the voice of my good old Benjamin speaking outside.
"My dear! I am afraid you will be starved if I let you
sleep any longer. It is half-past one o'clock; and a friend
of yours has come to lunch with us."
A fiiend of mine? What friends had I?  My husband
was far away; and my uncle Starkweather had given me
up in despair.
"Who is it?" I cried out from my bed, through the door.



THE LAW AND THE LADY.             167
"Major Fitz-David," Benjamin answered, by the same medium.
I sprang out of bed. The very man I wanted was waiting
to see me! Major Fitz-David, as the phrase is, knew every
body. Intimate with my husband, he would certainly know
my husband's old fiiend-Miserrimus Dexter.
Shall I confess that I took particular pains with my toilet,
and that I kept the luncheon waiting? The woman doesn't
live who would have done otherwise-when she had a particular favor to ask of Major Fitz-David.
CHAPTER XXII.
THE MAJOR MAKES DIFFICULTIES.
As I opened the dining-room door the Major hastened to
meet me. He looked the brightest and the youngest of living elderly gentlemen, with his smart blue frock-coat, his
winning smile, his ruby ring, and his ready compliment.
It was quite cheering to meet the modern Don Juan once
more.
"I don't ask after your health," said the old gentleman;
"your eyes answer me, my dear lady, before I can put the
question. At your age a long sleep is the true beautydraught. Plenty of bed —there is the simple secret of
keeping your good looks and living a long life —plenty of
bed!"
"I have not been so long in my bed, Major, as you suppose. To tell the truth, I have been up all night, reading."
Major Fitz-David lifted his well-painted eyebrows in polite surprise.
"What is the happy book which has interested you so
deeply?" he asked.
"The book," I answered, " is the Trial of my husband for
the murder of his first wife."
"Don't mention that horrid book!" he exclaimed. "Don't
speak of that dreadful subject! What have beauty and grace
to do with Trials, Poisonings, Horrors? Why, my charming
friend, profane your lips by talking of such things? Why
firighten away the Loves and the Graces that lie hid in your
smile. Humor an old fellow who adores the Loves and the



THE LAW AND THE LADY.              169
him for more years than I like to reckon up. What can be
your object —"
" I can tell you what my object is in two words," I interposed. "I want you to give me an introduction to Miserrimus Dexter."
My impression is that the Major turned pale under his
paint. This, at any rate, is certain-his sparkling little gray
eyes looked at me in undisguised bewilderment and alarm.
"You want to know Miserrimus Dexter?" he repeated,
with the air of a man who doubted the evidence of his own
senses. " Mr. Benjamin, have I taken too much of your excellent wine? Ain I the victim of a delusion-or did our
fair friend really ask me to give her an introduction to
Miserrimus Dexter?"
Benjamin looked at me in some bewilderment on his side,
and answered, quite seriously,
" I think you said so, my dear."
"I certainly said so," I rejoined. " What is there so very
surprising in my request?"
"The man is mad!" cried the Major. "In all England
you could not have picked out a person more essentially unfit to be introduced to a lady-to a young lady especiallythan Dexter. Have you heard of his horrible deformity?"
" I have heard of it-and it doesn't daunt me."
" Doesn't daunt you? M3y dear lady, the man's mind is
as deformed as his body. What Voltaire said satirically of
the character of his countrymen in general is literally true
of Miserrimus Dexter. He is a mixture of the tiger and the
monkey. At one moment he would fiighten you, and at the
next he woul'd set you screaming with laughter. I don't
deny that he is clever in some respects-brilliantly clever, I
admit. And I don't say that he has ever'committed any
acts of violence, or ever willingly injured any body. But, for
all that, he is mad, if ever a man were mad yet. Forgive me
if the inquiry is impertinent. What can your motive possibly be for wanting an introduction to MIiserrimus Dexter?"
" I want to consult him?"
"May I ask on what subject?"
" On the subject of my husband's Trial."
Major Fitz-David groaned, and sought a momentary consolation in his friend Benjamin's claret.
"That dreadful subject again!" he exclaimed. " Mr. Ben



170            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
jamin, why does she persist in dwelling on that dreadful subject?"
"I must dwell on what is now the one employment and
the one hope of my life," I said. "I have reason to hope
that Miserrimus Dexter can help me to clear my husband's
character of the stain which the Scotch Verdict has left on
it. Tiger and monkey as he may be, I am ready to run the
risk of being introduced to him. And I ask you againrashly and obstinately as I fear you will think-to give me
the introduction. It will put you to no inconvenience. I
won't trouble you to escort me; a letter to Mr. Dexter will
do."
The Major looked piteously at Benjamin, and shook his
head. Benjamin looked piteously at the Major, and shook
his head.
" She appears to insist on it," said the Major.
"Yes," said Benjamin. "She appears to insist on it."
"I won't take the responsibility,Mr. Benjamin, of sending
her alone to Miserrimus Dexter."
" Shall I go with her, sir?"
The Major reflected. Benjamin, in the capacity of protector, did not appear to inspire our military fiiend with confidence. After a moment's consideration a new idea seemed
to strike him. He turned to me.
" My charming friend," he said, " be more charming than
ever-consent to a compromise. Let us treat this difficulty
about Dexter fiom a social point of view. What do you say
to a little dinner?"
" A little dinner?" I repeated, not in the least understanding him.
"A little dinner," the Major reiterated, "at my house.
You insist on my introducing you to Dexter, and I refuse to
trust you alone with that crack-brained personage. The only
alternative under the circumstances is to invite him to meet
you, and to let you form your own opinion of him- under
the protection of my roof. Who shall we have to meet you
besides?" pursued the Major, brightening with hospitable intentions. "We want a perfect galaxy of beauty around the
table, as a species of compensation, when we have got Miserrimus Dexter as one of the guests. Madame Mirliflore is still
in London. You would be sure to like her —she is charming;
she possesses your firmness, your extraordinary tenacity of



THE LAW AND THE LADY.              1I1
purpose. Yes, we will have Madame MIirliflore. Who else?
Shall we say Lady Clarinda? Another charming person, Mr.
Benjamin! You would be sure to admire her-she is so sympathetic, she resembles in so many respects our fair friend
here. Yes, Lady Clarinda shall be one of us; and you shall
sit next to her, Mr. Benjamin, as a proof of my sincere regard
for you. Shall we have my young prima donna to sing to us
in the evening? I think so. She is pretty; she xvill assist
in obscuring the deformity of Dexter. Very well; there is
our party complete! I will shut myself up this evening and
approach the question of dinner with my cook. Shall we say
this day week," asked the Major, taking out his pocket-book,
"at eight o'clock?"
I consented to the proposed compromise — but not very
willingly. With a letter of introduction, I might have seen
Miserrimus Dexter that afternoon. As it was, the " little dinner" compelled me to wait in absolute inaction through a
whole week. However, there was no help for it but to submit. Major Fitz-David, in his polite way, could be as obstinate as I was. He had evidently made up his mind; and
ihrther opposition on my part would be of no service to me.
"Punctually at eight, Mr. Benjamin," reiterated the Major.'Put it down in your book."
Benjamin obeyed-with a side look at me, which I was at
no loss to interpret. My good old friend did not relish meeting a man at dinner who was described as " half tiger, half
monkey;" and the privilege of sitting next to Lady Clarinda
rather daunted than delighted him. It was all my doing, and
he too had no choice but to submit. "Punctually at eight,
sir," said poor old Benjamin, obediently recording his formidable engagement. "Please to take another glass of wine."
The Major looked at his watch, and rose-with fluent apologies for abruptly leaving the table.
"It is later than I thought," he said. " I have an appointment with a friend-a female friend; a most attractive person. You a little remind me of her, my dear lady- -you
resemble her in complexion: the same creamy paleness. I
adore creamy paleness. As I was saying, I have an appointment with my firiend; she does me the honor to ask my opinion on some very remarkable specimens of old lace. I have
studied old lace. I study every thing that can make me usefill or agreeable to your enchanting sex. You won't forget



THE LAW AND THE LADY.             173
am'really, speaking as his mother, almost ashamed to face
you.'"
Was she in earnest? I listened to her and looked at her
in amazement.
"Your uncle's letter," pursued Mrs. Macallan, "tells me
how you have behaved under your hard trial, and what you
propose to do now Eustace has left you. Doctor Starkweather, poor man, seems to be inexpressibly shocked by what you
said to him when he was in London. He begs me to use my
influence to induce you to abandon your present ideas, and
to make you return to your old home at the Vicarage. I
don't in the least agree with your uncle, my dear. Wild as
I believe your plans to be-you have not the slightest chance
of succeeding in carrying them out-I admire your courage,
your fidelity, your unshaken faith in my unhappy son, after
his unpardonable behavior to you. You are a fine creature,
Valeria, and I have come here to tell you so in plain words.
Give me a kiss, child. You deserve to be the wife of a hero,
and you have married one of the weakest of living mortals.
God forgive me for speaking so of my own son; but it's in
my mind, and it must come out!"
This way of speaking of Eustace was more than I could
suffer, even from his mother. I recovered the use of my
tongue in my husband's defense.
"I am sincerely proud of your good opinion, dear Mrs.
Macallan," I said. " But you distress me —forgive me if I
own it plainly-when I hear you speak so disparagingly of
Eustace. I can not agree with you that my husband is the
weakest of living mortals."
"Of course not!" retorted the old lady. "You are like
all good women — you make a hero of the man you love,
whether he deserve it or not. Your husband has hosts of
good qualities, child-and perhaps I know them better than
you do. But his whole conduct, from the moment when he
first entered your uncle's house to the present time, has been,
I say again, the conduct of an essentially weak man. What
do you think he has done now by way of climax? He has
joined a charitable brotherhood; and he is off to the war in
Spain with a red cross on his arm, when he ought to be here
on his knees, asking his wife to forgive him. I say that is
the conduct of a weak man. Some people might call it by a
harder name."
H 2



174            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
This news startled and distressed me. I might be resigned
to his leaving me for a time; but all my instincts as a woman revolted at his placing himself in a position of danger during his separation from his wife. He had now deliberately
added to my anxieties. I thought it cruel of him - but I
would not confess what I thought to his mother. I affected
to be as cool as she was; and I disputed her conclusions
with all the firmness that I could summon to help me. The
terrible old woman only went on abusing him more vehemently than ever.
"What I complain of in my son," proceeded Mrs. Macal]an, "is that he has entirely failed to understand you. If he
had married a fool, his conduct would be intelligible enough.
He would have done wisely to conceal from a fool that he
had been married already, and that he had suffered the horrid public exposure of a Trial for the murder of his wife.
Then, again, he would have been quite right, when this same
fool had discovered the truth, to take himself out of her way
before she could suspect him of poisoning her-for the sake
of the peace and quiet of both parties. But you are not a
fool. I can see that, after only a short experience of you.
Why can't he see it too? Why didn't he trust you with his
secret from the first, instead of stealing his way into your
affections under an assumed name? Why did he plan (as
he confessed to me) to take you away to the Mediterranean,
and to keep you abroad, for fear of some officious friends at
home betraying him to you as the prisoner of the famous
Trial?  What is the plain answer to all these questions?
What is the one possible explanation of this otherwise unaccountable conduct?' There is only one answer, and one
explanation. My poor, wretched son — he takes after his
father; he isn't the least like me! -is weak: weak in his
way of judging, weak in his way of acting, and, like all weak
people, headstrong and unreasonable to the last degree.
Thelre is the truth! Don't get red and angry. I am as fond
of him as you are. I can see his merits too. And one of
them is that he has married a woman of spirit and resolution-so faithful and so fond of him that she won't even let
his own mother tell her of his faults. Good child! I like
you for hating me!"
"Dear madam, don't say that I hate you!" I exclaimed
(feeling very much as if I did hate her, though, for all that).



THE LAW AND THE LADY.              175
"I only presume to think that you are confusing a delicateminded man with a weak-minded man. Our dear unhappy
Eustace-"
"Is a delicate-minded man," said the impenetrable Mrs.
Macallan, finishingC my sentence for me. "We will leave it
there, my dear, and get on to another subject. I wonder
whether we shall disagree about that too?"
"What is the subject, madam?"
"I won't tell you if you call me madam. Call me mother.
Say,' What is the subject, mother?"
"What is the subject, mother?"
"Your notion of turning yourself into a Court of Appeal
for a new Trial of Eustace, and forcing the world to pronounce a just verdict on him. Do you really mean to try
it?"
" I do!"
Mrs. Macallan considered for a moment grimly with herself.
"You know how heartily I admire your courage, and your
devotion to my unfortunate son," she said. "You know by
this time that I don't cant. But I can not see you attempt
to perform impossibilities; I can not let you uselessly risk
your reputation and your happiness without warning you
before it is too late. My child, the thing you have got it in
your head to do is not to be done by you or by any body.
Give it up."' I am deeply obliged to you, Mrs. Macallan —"
"' Mother!'"
"I am deeply obliged to you, mother, for the interest that
you take in me, but I can not give it up. Right or wrong,
risk or no risk, I must and I will try it!"
Mrs. Macallan looked at me very attentively, and sighed
to herself.
" Oh, youth, youth!" she said to herself, sadly. "What
a grand thing it is to be young!" She controlled the rising
regret, and turned on me suddenly, almost fiercely, with
these words: "What, in God's name, do you mean to do?"
At the instant when she put the question, the idea crossed
my mind that Mrs. Macallan could introduce me, if she
pleased, to Miserrimus Dexter. She must know him, and
know him well, as a guest at Gleninch and an old fiiend of
her son.



176            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
"I mean to consult Miserrimus Dexter," I answered,
boldly.
Mrs. Macallan started back firom me with a loud exclamation of surprise.
"Are you out of your senses?" she asked.
I told her, as I had told Major Fitz-David, that I had
reason to think Mr. Dexter's advice might be of real assistance to me at starting.
"And I," rejoined Mrs. Macallan, "have reason to think
that your whole project is a mad one, and that in asking
Dexter's advice on it you appropriately consult a madman.
You needn't start, child! There is no harm in the creature.
I don't mean that he will attack you, or be rude to you. I
only say that the last person whom a young woman, placed
in your painfill and delicate position, ought to associate herself with is Miserrilnus Dexter."
Strange! Here was the Major's warning repeated by Mrs.
Macallan, almost in the Major's own words. Well! It shared
the fate of most warnings. It only made me more and more
eager to have my own way.
"You surprise me very much," I said. "Mr. Dexter's evidence, given at the Trial, seems as clear and reasonable as
evidence can be."
"Of course it is!" answered Mrs. Macallan. "The shorthand writers and reporters put his evidence into presentable
language before they printed it. If you had heard what he
really said, as I did, you would have been either very much
disgusted with him or very much amused by him, according
to your way of looking at things. He began, fairly enough,
with a modest explanation of his absurd Christian name,
which at once checked the merriment of the audience. But
as he went on the mad side of him showed itself. He mixed
up sense and nonsense in the strangest confusion; he was
called to order over and over again; he was even threatened
with fine and imprisonment for contempt of Court. In short,
he was just like himself-a mixture of the strangest and the
most opposite qualities; at one time perfectly clear and
reasonable, as you said just now; at another breaking out
into rhapsodies of the most outrageous kind, like a man in a
state of delirium. A more entirely unfit person to advise
any body, I tell you again, never lived. You don't expect
Mle to introduce you to him, I hope?"



THE LAW AND THE LADY.              1 77
"I did think of such a thino," I answered. "But after
what you have said, dear Mrs. Macallan, I give up the idea
of course. It is not a great sacrifice-it only obliges me to
wait a week for Major Fitz-David's dinner-party. He has
promised to ask Aliserrimus Dexter to meet me."
"There is the Major all over!" cried the old lady. "If
you pin your faith on that man, I pity you. He is as slippery as an eel. I suppose you asked him to introduce you
to Dexter?"
"' Yes."
"Exactly! Dexter despises him, my dear. He knows as
well as I do that Dexter won't go to his dinner. And he
takes that roundabout way of keeping you apart, instead
of saying No to you plainly, like an honest man."
This was bad news. But I was, as usual, too obstinate to
own myself defeated.
" If the worst comes to the worst," I said, " I can but write
to Mr. Dexter, and beg him to grant me an interview."
"And go to him by yourself, if he does grant it?" inquired Mrs. Macallan.
"Certainly. By myself."
" You really mean it?"
"I do, indeed."
"I won't allow you to go by yourself."
" May I venture to ask, ma'amn, how you propose to prevent me?"
"By going with you, to be sure, you obstinate hussy!
Yes, yes —I can be as headstrong as you are when I like.
Mind! I don't want to know what your plans are. I don't
want to be mixed up with your plans. My son is resigned
to the Scotch Verdict. I am resigned to the Scotch Verdict.
It is you who won't let matters rest as they are. You are a
vain and foolhardy young person. But, somehow, I have
taken a liking to you, and I won't let you go to Miserrimus
Dexter by yourself. Put on your bonnet!"
"Now?" I asked.
"Certainly! My carriage is at the door. And the sooner it's over the better I shall be pleased. Get ready-and
be.quick about it!"
I required no second bidding. In ten minutes more we
were on our way to Miserrimus Dexter.
Such was the result of my mother-in-law's visit!



1 78           THE LAW AND THE LADY.
CHAPTER XXIV.
MISERRIMUS DEXTER-FIRST VIEW.
WE had dawdled over our luncheon before Mrs. Macallan
arrived at Benjamin's cottage.  The ensuing conversation
between the old lady and myself (of which I have only presented a brief abstract) lasted until quite late in the afternoon. The sun was setting in heavy clouds when we got
into the carriage, and the autumn twilight began to fall
around us while we were still on the road.
The direction in which we drove took us (as well as I
could judge) toward the great northern suburb of London.
For more than an hour the carriage threaded its way
through a dingy brick labyrinth of streets, growing smaller
and smaller and dirtier and dirtier the farther we went.
Emerging from the labyrinth, I noticed in the gathering
darkness dreary patches of waste ground which seemed to
be neither town nor country. Crossing these, we passed
some forlorn outlying groups of houses with dim little scattered shops among them, looking like lost country villages
wandering on the way to London, disfigured and smoke-dried
already by their journey. Darker and darker and drearier
and drearier the prospect grew, until the carriage stopped
at last, and Mrs. Macallan announced, in her sharply satirical
way, that we had reached the end of our journey. "Prince
Dexter's Palace, my dear," she said. " What do you think
of it?"
I looked around me, not knowing what to think of it, if
the truth must be told.
We had got out of the carriage, and we were standing on
a rough half-made gravel-path. Right and left of me, in the
dim light, I saw the half completed foundations of new houses
in their first stage of existence. Boards and bricks were
scattered about us. At places gaunt scaffolding poles rose
like the branchless trees of the brick desert. Behind us, on
the other side of the high-road, stretched another plot of
waste ground, as yet not built on. Over the surface of this
second desert the ghostly white figures of vagrant ducks



THE LAW AND THE LADY.              179
gleamed at intervals in the mystic light. In front of us, at
a distance of two hundred yards or so, as well as I could
calculate, rose a black mass, which gradually resolved itself,
as my eyes became accustomed to the twilight, into a long,
low, and ancient house, with a hedge of evergreens and a
pitch-black paling in front of it. The footman led the way
toward the paling through the boards and the bricks, the
oyster shells and the broken crockery, that strewed the
ground. And this was " Prince Dexter's Palace!"
There was a gate in the pitch-black paling, and a bellhandle —discovered with great difficulty. Pulling at the
handle, the footman set in motion, to judge by the sound
produced, a bell of prodigious size, fitter for a church than a
house.
While we were waiting for admission, Mrs. Macallan
pointed to the low, dark line of the old building.
"There is one of his madnesses," she said. "The speculators in this new neighborhood have offered him I don't
know how many thousand pounds for the ground that house
stands on. It was originally the manor-house of the district.
Dexter purchased it many years since in one of his fieaks of
fancy. He has no old family associations with the place;
the walls are all but tumbling about his ears; and the money
offered would really be of use to him. But no! He refused
the proposal of the enterprising speculators by letter in these
words:'My house is a standing monument of the picturesque
and beautiful, amid the mean, dishonest, and groveling
constructions of a mean, dishonest, and groveling age. I
keep my house, gentlemen, as a useful lesson to you. Look
at it while you are building around me, and blush, if you
can, for your work.' Was there ever such an absurd letter
written yet? Hush! I hear footsteps in the garden. Here'comes his cousin. His cousin is a woman. I may as well
tell you that, or you might mistake her for a man in the
dark."
A rough, deep voice, which I should certainly never have
supposed to be the voice of a woman, hailed us firom the inner side of the paling.
" Who's there?"
"Mrs. Macallan," answered my mother-in-law.
" What do you want?"
"We want to see Dexter."



180            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
"You can't see him."
" Why not?"
"What did you say your name was?"
"Macallan. Mrs. Macallan. Eustace Macallan's mother.
Now do you understand?"
The voice muttered and grunted behind the paling, and a
key turned in the lock of the gate.
Admitted to the garden, in-the deep shadow of the shrubs,
I could see nothing distinctly of the woman with the rough
voice, except that she wore a man's hat. Closing the gate
behind us, without a word of welcome or explanation, she
led the way to the house. Mrs. Macallan followed her easily,
knowing the place; and I walked in Mrs. Macallan's footsteps as closely as I could. "This is a nice family," my
mother-in-law whispered to me. "Dexter's cousin is the only
woman in the house-and Dexter's cousin is an idiot."
We entered a spacious hall with a low ceiling, dimly lighted at its farther end by one small oil-lamp. I could see that
there were pictures on the grim, brown walls, but the subjects
represented were invisible in the obscure and shadowy light.
Mrs. Macallan addressed herself to the speechless cousin
with the man's hat.
"Now tell me," she said. "Why can't we see Dexter?"
The cousin took a sheet of paper off the table, and handed
it to Mrs. Macallan.
"The Master's writing," said this strange creature, in a
hoarse whisper, as if the bare idea of " the Master" terrified
her. "Read it. And stay or go, which you please."
She opened an invisible side door in the wall, masked by
one of the pictures-disappeared through it like a ghostand left us together alone in the hall.
Mrs. Macallan approached the oil-lamp, and looked by its
light at the sheet of paper which the woman had given to her.
I followed and peeped over her shoulder without ceremony.
The paper exhibited written characters, traced in a wonderfully large and firm handwriting. Had I caught the infection of madness in the air of the house? Or did I really see
before me these words?
"NOTICE.-My immense imagination is at work. Visions
of heroes unroll themselves before me. I reanimate in myself the spirits of the departed great. My brains are boiling



MRS. MACALLAN APPROACHED THE OIL-LAMP, AND LOOKED BY ITS LIGHT AT
THE SHEET OF PAPER WHICH THE WOMAN HAD GIVEN TO HER."






THE LAW AND THE LADY.               181
in my head. Any persons who disturb me, under existing circumstances, will do it at the peril of their lives.-DEXTER."
Mrs. MIacallan looked around at me quietly with her sardonic smile.
"Do you still persist in wanting to be introduced to him?"
she asked.
The mockery in the tone of the question roused my pride.
I determined that I would not be the first to give way.
"Not if I am putting you in peril of your life, ma'am,"' I
answered, pertly enough, pointing to the paper in her hand.
My mother-in-law returned to the hall table, and put the
paper back on it without condescending to reply. She then
led the way to an arched recess on our right hand, beyond
which I dimly discerned a broad flight of oaken stairs.
"Follow me," said Mrs. Macallan, mounting the stairs in
the dark. "I know where to find him."
We groped our way up the stairs to the first landing.
The next flight of steps, turning in the reverse direction, was
faintly illuminated, like the hall below, by one oil-lamp,
placed in some invisible position above us. Ascending the
second flight of stairs and crossing a short corridor, we discovered the lamp, through the open door of a quaintly shaped
circular room, burning on the mantel-piece~ Its light illuminated a strip of thick tapestry, hanging loose from the
ceiling to the floor, on the wall opposite to the door by
which we had entered.
Mrs. Macallan drew aside the strip of tapestry, and, signing me to follow her, passed behind it.
"Listen!" she whispered.
Standing on the inner side of the tapestry, I found myself
in a dark recess or passage, at the end of which a ray of light
fiom the lamp showed me a closed door. I listened, and
heard on the other side of the door a shouting voice, accompanied by an extraordinary rumbling and whistling sound,
traveling backward and forward, as well as I could judge,
over a great space. Now the rumbling and the whistling
would reach their climax-of loudness, and would overcome
the resonant notes of the shouting voice. Then again those
louder sounds gradually retreated into distance, and the
shouting voice made itself heard as the more audible sound
of the two. The door must have been of prodigious solidity.



182            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
Listen as intently as I might, I failed to catch the articulate
words (if any) which the voice was pronouncing, and I was
equally at a loss to penetrate the cause which produced the
rumbling and whistling sounds.
"What can possibly be going on," I whispered to Mrs.
Macallan, "on the other side of that door?"
"Step softly," my mother-in-law answered, " and come
and see."
She arranged the tapestry behind us so as completely to
shut out the light in the circular room. Then noiselessly
turning the handle, she opened the heavy door.
We kept ourselves concealed in the shadow of the recess,
and looked through the open doorway.
I saw (or fancied I saw, in the obscurity) a long room with
a low ceiling. The dying gleam of an ill-kept fire formed
the only light by which I could judge of objects and distances. Redly illuminating the central portion of the room,
opposite to which we were standing, the fire-light left the
extremities shadowed in almost total darkness. I had barely time to notice this before I heard the rumbling and whistling sounds approaching me. A high chair on wheels moved
by, through the field of red light, carrying a shadowy figure
with floating hair, and arms furiously raised and lowered
working the machinery that propelled the chair at its utmost rate of speed. "I am Napoleon, at the sunrise of Austerlitz!" shouted the man in the chair as he swept past me
on his rumbling and whistling wheels, in the red glow of the
fire-light. "I give the word, and thrones rock, and kings
fall, and nations tremble, and men by tens of thousands fight
and bleed and die!" The chair rushed out of sight, and the
shouting man in it became another hero. "I am Nelson!"
the ringing voice cried now. "I am leading the fleet at
Trafalgar. I issue my commands, prophetically conscious of
victory and death. I see my own apotheosis, my public fiuneral, my nation's tears, my burial in the glorious church.
The ages remember me, and the poets sing my praise in imnmortal verse!" The strident wheels turned at the far end
of the room and came back. The fantastic and frightful apparition, man and machinery blended in one-the new Centaur, half man, half chair-flew by me again in the dying
light. "I am Shakespeare!" cried the fiantic creature now.
"I am writing Lear, the tragedy of tragedies. Ancients



THE LAW AND THE LADY.              183
and moderns, I am the poet who towers over them all.
Light! light! the lines flow out like lava fiom the eruption
of my volcanic mind. Light! light! for the poet of all time
to write the words that live forever!" He ground and tore
his way back toward the middle of the room. As he approached the fire-place a last morsel of unburned coal (or
wood) burst into momentary flame, and showed the open
doorway. In that moment he saw us! The wheel-chair
stopped with a shock that shook the crazy old floor of the
room, altered its course, and flew at us with the rush of a
wild animal. We drew back, just in time to escape it, against
the wall of the recess. The chair passed on, and burst aside
the hanging tapestry. The light of the lamp in the circular
room poured in through the gap. The creature in the chair
checked his furious wheels, and looked back over his shoulder
with an impish curiosity horrible to see.
" Have I run over them? Have I ground them to powder
for presuming to intrude on me?" he said to himself. As
the expression of this amiable doubt passed his lips his eyes
lighted on us. His mind instantly veered back again to
Shakespeare and King Lear. "Goneril and Regan!" he
cried. " My two unnatural daughters, my she-devil children
come to mock at me!"
" Nothing of the sort," said my mother-in-law, as quietly
as if she were addressing a perfectly reasonable being. "I
am your old friend, Mrs. Macallan; and I have brought Eu —
tace Macallan's second wife to see you."
The instant she pronounced those last words, " Eustace
Macallan's second wife," the man in the chair sprang out of
it with a shrill cry of horror, as if she had shot him. For
one moment we saw a head and body in the air, absolutely
deprived of the lower limbs. The moment after, the terrible creature touched the floor as lightly as a monkey, on his
hands. The grotesque horror of the scene culminated in his
hopping away, on his hands, at a prodigious speed, until he
reached the fire-place in the long room. There he crouched
over the dying embers, shuddering and shivering, and muttering, " Oh, pity me, pity me!" dozens and dozens of times
to himself.
This was the man whose advice I had come to ask-whose
assistance I had confidently counted on in my hour of need.



184            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
CHAPTER XXV.
MISERRIMUS DEXTER-SECOND VIEW.
THOROUGHLY disheartened and disgusted, and (if I must
honestly confess it) thoroughly fiightened too, I whispered
to Mrs. Macallan, "I was wrong, and you were right. Let
us go."
The ears of Miserrimus Dexter must have been as sensitive
as the ears of a dog. He heard me say, "Let us go."
" No!" he called out. "Brino Eustace Macallan's second
wife in here. I am a gentleman-I must apologize to her.
I am a student of human character-I wish to see her."
The whole man appeared to have undergone a complete
transformation. He spoke in the gentlest of voices, and he
sighed hysterically when he had done, like a woman recovering from a burst of tears. Was it reviving courage or reviving curiosity?  When Mrs. Macallan said to me, "The
fit is over now; do you still wish to go away?" I answered,
" No; I am ready to go in."
" Have you recovered your belief in him already?" asked
my mother-in-law, in her mercilessly satirical way.
" I have recovered from my terror of him," I replied.
"I am sorry I terrified you," said the soft voice at the
fire-place. "Some people think I am a little mad at times.
You came, I suppose, at one of the times-if some people are
right. I admit that I am a visionary. My imagination runs
away with me, and I say and do strange things. On those
occasions, any body who reminds me of that horrible Trial
throws me back again into the past, and causes me unutterable nervous suffering. I am a very tender-hearted man.
As the necessary consequence (in such a world as this), I am
a miserable wretch. Accept my excuses. Come in, both of
you. Come in and pity me."
A child would not have been frightened of him now. A
child would have gone in and pitied him.
The room was getting darker and darker. We could just
see the crouching figure of Miserrimus Dexter at the expiring
fire-and that was all.



THE LAW AND THE LADY.               185
"Are we to have no light?" asked IMrs. Macallan. "And
is this lady to see you, when the light comes, out of your
chair?"
He lifted something bright and metallic, hanging round
his neck, and blew on it a series of shrill, tlilling, bird-like
notes. After an interval he was answered by a similar series
of notes, sounding faintly in some distant region of the house.
"Ariel is coming," he said. "Compose yourself, Mamma
Macallan; Ariel will make me presentable to a lady's eyes."
He hopped away on his hands into the darkness at the
end of the room. "Wait a little," said Mrs. Macallan, "and
you will have another surprise-you will see the'delicate
Ariel.'"
We heard heavy footsteps in the circular room.
"Ariel!" sighed Miserrimus Dexter out of the darkness,
in his softest notes.
To my astonishment the coarse, masculine voice of the
cousin in the man's hat —the Caliban's, rather than the Ariel's voice-answered, "Here!"
"My chair, Ariel!"
The person thus strangely- misnamed drew aside the tapestry, so as to let in more light; then entered the room, pushing the wheeled chair before her. She stooped and lifted
Miserrimus Dexter from the floor, like a child. Before she
could put him into the chair, he sprang out of her arms with
a little gleeful cry, and alighted on his seat, like a bird alighting on its perch!
"The lamp," said Miserrimus Dexter, "and the lookingglass.-Pardon me," he added, addressing us, "for turning
my back on you. You mustn't see me until my hair is set
to rights.-Ariel! the brush, the comb, and the perfumes!"
Carrying the lamp in one hand, the looking-glass in the
other, and the brush (with the comb stuck in it) between
her teeth, Ariel the Second, otherwise Dexter's cousin, presented herself plainly before me for the first time. I could
now see the girl's round, fleshy, inexpressive face, her rayless and colorless eyes, her coarse nose and heavy chin. A
creature half alive; an imperfectly developed animal in shapeless form, clad in a man's pilot jacket, and treading in a man's
heavy laced boots, with nothing but an old red-flannel petticoat, and a broken comb in her frowzy flaxen hair, to tell
us that she was a woman-such was the inhospitable person



186            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
who had received us in the darkness when we first entered
the house.
This wonderful valet, collecting her materials for dressing
her still more wonderful master's hair, gave him the lookingglass (a hand-mirror), and addressed herself to her work.
She combed, she brushed, she oiled, she perfumed the
flowing locks and the long silky beard of Miserrimus Dexter
with the strangest mixture of dullness and dexterity that I
ever saw. Done in brute silence, with a lumpish look and a
clumsy gait, the work was perfectly well done nevertheless.
The imp in the chair superintended the whole proceeding
critically by means of his hand-mirror. He was too deeply
interested in this occupation to speak until some of the concluding touches to his beard brought the misnamed Ariel in
front of him, and so turned her full face toward the part of
the room in which Mrs. Macallan and I were standing. Then
he addressed us, taking especial care, however, not to turn
his head our way while his toilet was still incomplete.
" Mamma Macallan," he said, " what is the Christian name
of your son's second wife?"
"Why do you want to know?" asked my mother-in-law.
"I want to know because I can't address her as'Mrs. Eustace Macallan.'"
" WIhy not?"
"it recalls the other Mrs. Eustace Macallan. If I am reminded of those horrible days at Gleninch my fortitude will
give way —I shall burst out screaming again."
Hearing this, I hastened to interpose.
" My name is Valeria," I said.
"A Roman name," remarked Miserrimus Dexter. "I like
it. My mind is cast in the Roman mould. My bodily build
would have been Roman if I had been born with legs. I
shall call you Mrs. Valeria, unless you disapprove of it."
I hastened to say that I was far from disapproving of it.
"Very good," said Miserrimus Dexter. "Mrs. Valeria,
do you see the face of this creature in front of me?"
He pointed with the hand-mirror to his cousin as unconcernedly as he might have pointed to a dog. His cousin, on
her side, took no more notice than a dog would have taken
of the contemptuous phrase by which he had designated her.
She went on combing and oiling his beard as composedly as
ever.



THE LAW AND THE LADY.               187
"It is the face of an idiot, isn't it?" pursued MIiserrimus
Dexter. "Look at her! She is a mere vegetable. A cabbage in a garden has as much life and expression in it as
that girl exhibits at the present moment. Would you believe there was latent intelligence, affection, pride, fidelity,
in such a half-developed being as this?"
I was really ashamed to answer him. Quite needlessly!
The impenetrable young woman went on with her mastel's
beard.,A machine could not have taken less notice of the
life and the talk around it than this incomprehensible creature.
"Ihave got at that latent affection, pride, fidelity, and the
rest of it," resumed Miserrimus Dexter.  "I hold the key to
that dormant Intelligence. Grand thought! Now look at
her when I speak. (I named her, poor wretch, in one of my
ironical moments. She has got to like her name, just as a
dog gets to like his collar.)  Now, Mrs. Valeria, look and
listen.-Ariel!"
The girl's dull face began to brighten. The girl's mechanically moving hand stopped, and held the comb in suspense.
"Ariel! you have learned to dress my hair and anoint my
beard, haven't you?"
Her face still brightened. "Yes! yes! yes!" she answered,
eagerly. "And you say I have learned to do it well, don't
you?"
"I say that. Would you like to let any body else do it
for vou?"
Her eyes melted softly into light and life. Her strange
unwomanly voice sank to the gentlest tones that I had heard
fiom her yet.
"Nobody else shall do it for me," she said, at once proudly and tenderly. "Nobody, as long as I live, shall touch
you but me."
"Not even the lady there?" asked [Iiserrimus Dexter,
pointing backward with his hand-mirror to the place at
which I was standing.
Her eyes suddenly flashed, her hand suddenly shook the
comb at me, in a burst of jealous race.
"Let her try!" cried the poor creature, raising her voice
again to its hoarsest notes. " Let her touch you if she dares!"
Dexter laughed at the childish outbreak. "That will do,
my delicate Ariel," he said. "I dismiss your Intelligence
I



188            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
for the present. Relapse into your former self. Finish my
beard."
She passively resumed her work. The new light in her
eyes, the new expression in her face, faded little by little and
died out. In another minute the face was as vacant and as
lumpish as before; the hands did their work again with the
lifeless dexterity which had so painfully impressed me when
she first took up the brush. AIiserrimus Dexter appeared to
be perfectly satisfied with these results.
"I thought my little experiment might interest you," he
said. " You see how it is? The dormant intelligence of my
curious cousin is like the dormant sound in a musical instrument. I play upon it —and it answers to my touch. She
likes being played upon. But her great delight is to hear
me tell a story. I puzzle her to the verge of distraction;
and the more I confuse her, the better she likes the story.
It is the greatest fun; you really must see it some day." IIe
indulged himself in a last look at the mirror. " Ha!" he said,
complacently; " now I shall do. Vanish, Ariel!"
She tramped out of the room in her heavy boots, with the
mute obedience of a trained animal. I said " Good-night"
as she passed me. She neither returned the salutation nor
looked at me: the words simply produced no effect on hei'
dull senses. The one voice that could reach her was silent.
She had relapsed once more into the vacant inanimate creature who had opened the gate to us, until it pleased Miserriruns Dexter to speak to her again.
"Valeria!" said my mother-in-law.' Our modest host is
waiting to see what you think of him."
While my attention was fixed on his cousin he had wheeled his chair around so as to face me, with the light of the lamp
falling full on him. In mentioning his appearance as a witness at the Trial, I find I have borrowed (without meaning to
do so) from my experience of him at this later time. I saw
plainly now the bright intelligent face and the large clear
blue eyes, the lustrous waving hair of a light chestnut color, the long delicate white hands, and the magnificent throat
and chest which I have elsewhere described. The deformity
which degraded and destroyed the manly beauty of his head
and breast was hidden from view by an Oriental robe of
many colors, thrown over the chair like a coverlet. He was
clothed in a jacket of black velvet, fastened loosely across



THE LAW AIND THE LADY.             189
his chest with large malachite buttons; and he wore lace
ruffles at the ends of his sleeves, in the fashion of the last
century. It may well have been due to want of perception
on my part-but I could see nothing mad in him, nothing in
any way repelling, as he now looked at me. The one defect
that I could discover in his face was at the outer corners of
his eyes, just under the temple. Here when he laughed, and
in a lesser degree when he smiled, the skin contracted into
quaint little wrinkles and folds, which looked strangely out
of harmony with the almost youthful appearance of the rest
of his face. As to his other features, the mouth, so far as his
beard and mustache permitted me to see it, was small and
delicately formed; the nose-perfectly shaped on the straight
Grecian model —was perhaps a little too thin, judged by comparison with the full cheeks and the high massive forehead.
Looking at him as a whole (and speaking of him, of course,
from a woman's, not a physiognomist's, point of view), I canl
only describe him as being an unusually handsome man. A
painter would have reveled in him as a model for St. John.
And a young girl, ignorant of what the Oriental robe hid
from viewI, would have said to herself, the instant she looked
at him, " Here is the hero of my dreams!"
His blue eyes-large as the eyes of a woman, clear as the
eyes of a child-rested on me the moment I turned toward
him, with -a strangely varying play of expression, which at
once interested and perplexed me.
Now there was doubt-uneasy, painful doubt-in the look;
and now again it changed brightly to approval, so open and
unrestrained that a. vain woman nmight have fancied she had
made a conquest of him at first sight. Suddenly a new emotion seemed't-+ take possession of him. His eyes sank, his
head drooped; he lifted his hands with a gesture of regret.
He muttered and murmured to himself; pursuing some secret
and melancholy train of thought, which seemed to lead him
farther and farther away from present objects of interest, and
to plunge him deeper and deeper in troubled recollections of
the past. Here and there I caught some of the words. Little by little I found myself trying to fathom what was darkly passing in this strange man's mind.
"A far more charming face," I heard him. say.  "But
no- not a more beautiful figure. What figure was ever
more beautiful than hers? Something-but not all-of her



190            TIIE LAW AND TIIE LADY.
enclianting grace. Where is the resemblance which has
brought her back to me?  In the pose of the figure, perhaps. In the movement of the fig(ure, perhaps. Poor martyred angel! What a life! And what a death! what a
death!"
Was he comparing me with the victim of the poison -
with my husband's first wife? His words seemed to justify
the conclusion. If I were right, the dead woman had evidently been a favorite with him. There was no misinterpreting the broken tones of his voice when he spoke of her:
he had admired her, living; he mourned her, dead. Supposing that I could prevail upon myself to admit this extraordinary person into my confidence, what would be the result?
Should I be the gainer or the loser by the resemblance which
he fancied he had discovered? Would the sight of me console him or pain him? I waited eagerly to hear more on the
subject of the first wife. Not a word more escaped his lips.
A new change came over him. HIe lifted his head with a
start, and looked about him as a weary man might look if he
was suddenly disturbed in a deep sleep.
" What have I done?" he said. " Have I been letting my
mind drift again?" IHe shuddered and sighed. "Oh, that
house of Gleninch!" he murmured, sadly, to himself. "Shall
I never get away from it in my thoughts? Oh, that house
of Gleninch!"
To my infinite disappointment, Mrs. MAacallan checked the
further revelation of what was passing in his mind.
Somethinc in the tone and manner of his allusion to her
son's country-house seemed to have offended her. She interposed sharply and decisively.
"Gently, my friend, gently!" she said. "I don't think you
quite know what you are talking about."
His great blue eyes flashed at her fiercely. With one turn
of his hand he brought his chair close at her side. The next
instant he caught her by the arm, and forced her to bend to
him, until he could whisper in her ear. He was violently
agitated. His whisper was loud enough to make itself heard
where I was sitting at the time.
"I don't know what I am talking about?" he repeated,
with his eyes fixed attentively, not on my mother-in-law,
but on me. "You short-sighted old woman! where are your
spectacles? Look at her! Do you see no resemblance —



TIIE LAW AND TIlE LADY.            191
the figure, not the face!-do you see no resemblance there
to Eustace's first wife?"
"Pure fancy!" rejoined Mrs. 3Macallan. "I see nothing of
the sort."
He shook her impatiently.
" Not so loud!" he whispered. "She will hear you."
" I have heard you both," I said. " You need have no fear,
It1. Dexter, of speaking before me. I know that my husband
had a first wife, and I know how miserably she died. I have
read the Trial."
"You have read the life and death of a martyr!" cried
Miserrimus Dexter.  IIe suddenly wheeled his chair my
way; he bent over me; his eyes filled with tears. " Nobody appreciated her at her true value," he said, " but me.
Nobody but me! nobody but me!"
Mrs. Macallan walked away impatiently to the end of the
room.
"When you are ready, Valeria, I am," she said. "WVe can
not keep the servants and the horses waitin(r much longer in
this bleak place."
I was too deeply interested in leading Miserrimus Dexter
to pursue the subject on which he had touched to be willing
to leave him at that moment. I pretended not to have heardcl
Mrs. Macallan.  I laid my hand, as if by accident, on the
wheel-chair to keep him near me.
"You showed me how highly you esteemed that poor lady
in your evidence at the Trial," I said. "I believe, Mr. Dexter, you have ideas of your own about the mystery of her
death?"
Ile had been looking at my hand, resting on the arm of
his chair, until I ventured on my question. At that he suddenly raised his eyes, and fixed them with a firowning and fiurtive suspicion on my face.
"How do you know I have ideas of my own?" he asked,
sternly.
"I know it from reading the Trial," I answered. "'The
lawyer who cross-examined you spoke almost in the very
words which I have just used. I had no intention of offending you, 3Mr. Dexter."
His face cleared as rapidly as it had clouded. He smiled,
and laid his hand on mine. His touch struck me cold. I
felt every nerve in me shivering under it; I drew my hand
away quickly.



192            THE. LAWV AND. THE LADY.
"I beg your pardon," he said " if I have misunderstood
you. I have ideas of my own about that unhappy lady."
He paused and looked at me ill silence very earnestly. "Have
you any ideas?" he asked. " Ideas about her life? or about
her death?"
I was deeply interested; I was burning to hear more. It
might encourage him to speak if I were candid with him. I
answered, "Yes."
"Ideas which you have mentioned to any one?" he went
on.
"To no living( creature," I replied-" as yet."
"This is very strange!" he said, still earnestly reading my
face. " What interest can you have in a dead woman whom
you never knew? Why did you ask me that question just
now? Have you any motive in coming here to see me?"
I boldly acknowledged the truth. I said, "I have a motive."
"Is it connected with Eustace MIacallan's first wife?"
" It is."
"With any thing that happened in her lifetime?"
" No."
"With her death?"
" Yes."
lIe suddenly clasped his hands with a wild gesture of despair, and then pressed them both on his head, as if he were
struck by some sudden pain.
"I can't hear it to-night!" he said. "I would give worlds
to hear it, but I daren't. I should lose all hold over myself
in the state I am in now. I am not equal to raking up the
horror and the mystery of the past; I have not courage
enough to open the grave of the martyred dead. Did you
hear me when you came here? I have an immense imacination. It runs riot at times. It makes an actor of me. I play
the parts of all the heroes that ever lived. I feel their characters. I merge myself in their individualities. For the
time I anm the man I fancy myself to be. I can't help it. I
am obliged to do it. If I restrained my imagination when
the fit is on me, I should go mad. I let myself loose. It
lasts for hours. It leaves me with my energies worn out,
with my sensibilities frightfully acute. Rouse any melancholy or terrible associations in me at such times, and I am
capable of hysterics, I am capable of screaming. You heard
me scream. You shall not see me. in hysterics. No, Mrs.



THE LAW AND TIIE LADY.             193
Valeria-no, you innocent reflection of the dead and gone —
I would not frighten you for the world. Will you come
here to-morrow in the daytime? I have got a chaise and a
pony. Ariel, my delicate Ariel, can drive. She shall call at
MIamma Macallan's and fetch you. We will talk to-morrow,
when I am fit for it. I am dying to hear you. I will be fit
for you in the morning. I will be civil, intelligent, communicative, in the morning. No more of it now. Away with
the subject —the too exciting, the too interesting subject! I
must compose myself, or my brains will explode in my head.
Music is the true narcotic for excitable brains. Mly harp!
my harp!"
He rushed away in his chair to the far end of the room,
passing Mrs. Macallan as she returned to me, bent on hasteningr our departure.
"Come!" said the old lady, irritably.  "You have seen
him, and he has made a good show of himself. MIore of him
might be tiresome. Come away."
The chair returned to us more slowly. M1iserrimus Dexter was working it with one hand only. In the other he held
a harp of a pattern which I had hitherto only seen in pictures.
The strings were few in number, and the instrument was so
small that I could have held it easily on my lap. It was the
ancient harp of the pictured MIuses and the legendary Welsh
bards.
"Good-night, Dexter," said Mrs. Macallaln.
He held up one hand imperatively.
" Wait!" he said. "Let her hear me sing." He turned to
me. "I decline to be indebted to other people for my poetry
and my music," he went on. "I compose my own poetry and
my own music. I improvise. Give me a moment to think. I
will improvise for You."
He closed his eyes and rested his head on the fiame of the
harp. His fingers gently touched the strings while he was
thinking. In a few minutes he lifted his head, looked at me,
and struck the first notes-the prelude to the song. It was
wild, barbaric, monotonous music, utterly unlike any modern
composition. Sometimes it suggested a slow and undulating
Oriental dance. Sometimes it modulated into tones which
reminded me of the severer harmonies of the old Gregorian
chants. The words, when they followed the prelude, were
as wild, as recklessly free from all restraint of critical rules,



194              TIIE LAW  AND T-IE LADY.
as the music. They were assuredly inspired by the occasion;
I was the theme of the strange song. And thus-in one of
the finest tenor voices I ever heard-my poet sang of me:
"Why does she come?
She reminds me of the lost;
She reminds me of the dead:
In her form like the other,
In her walk like the other:
WVhy does she come?
"Does Destiny bring her?
Shall we range together
The mazes of tile past?
Shall we search together
The secrets of the past?
Shall we interchange thoughts, surmises, suspicions?
Does Destiny bring her?
"The Future will show.
Let the night pass;
Let the day come.
I shall see into Her mind:
She will look into Mine.
The Future will show."
His voice sank, his fingers touched the strings more and
more feebly as he approached the last lines.  The overwrought brain needed and took its reanimnating' repose.  At
the final words his eyes slowly closed. His head lay back
on the chair.  He slept with his arms around his harp, as a
child sleeps hugging its last new toy.
We stole out of the room on tiptoe, and left Miserrimus
Dexter-poet, composer, and madman-in his peaceful sleep.
CHAPTER XXVI.
MORE OF MY OBSTINACY.
ARIEL was down-stairs in the shadowy hall, half asleep,
half awake, waiting to see the visitors clear of the house.
Without speaking to us, without looking at us, she led the
way down the dark garden walk, and locked the gate behind us.  "Good-night, Ariel," I called out to her over the
paling.  Nothing answered me but the tramp of her heavy



THE LAW AND THE LADY.                195
footsteps returning to the house, and the dull thump, a moment afterward, of the closing door.
The footman had thoughtfully lighted the carriage lamps.
Carrying one of them to serve as a lantern, he lighted us
over the wilds of the brick desert, and landed us safely on
the path by the high-road.
" Well!" said my mother-in-law, when we were comfortably seated in the carriage again. "You have seen Miserrimus Dexter, and I hope you are satisfied. I will do him
the justice to declare that I never, in all my experience, saw
him more completely crazy than he was to-night. What do
you say?"
"I don't presume to dispute your opinion," I answered.
"But, speaking for myself, I am not quite sure that he is
mad."
" Not mad!" cried IMrs. Macallan, " after those fiantic
performances in his chair? Not mad, after the exhibition
he made of his unfortunate cousin? Not mad, after the
songr that he sang in your honor, and the falling asleep by
way of conclusion?  Oh, Valeria! Valeria! Well said the
wisdom of our ancestors-there are none so blind as those
who won't see."
" Pardon me, dear fMrs. Mlacallan, I saw every thing that
you mention, and I never felt more surprised or more confounded in my life. But, now I have recovered from my
amazement, and can think it over quietly, I must still venture to doubt whether this strange man is really mad in the
true meaning of the word. It seems to me that he only
expresses-I admit in a very reckless and boisterous waythoughts and feelings which most of us are ashamed of as
weaknesses, and which we keep to ourselves accordingly. I
confess I have often fancied myself transformed into some
other person, and have felt a certain pleasure in seeing myself in my new character. One of our first amusements as
children (if we have any imagination at all) is to get out of
our own characters, and to try the characters of other personages as a change —to be fairies, to be queens, to be any
thing, in short, but what we really are. M1r. Dexter lets out
the secret just as the children do, and if that is madness, he
is certainly mad. But I noticed that when his imagination
cooled down he became Miserrimuts Dexter again-he no
more believed himself than we believed him to be Napoleon
T 2



196            THE LAW AND. THE LADY.
or Shakespeare. Besides, some allowance is surely to be made
for the solitary, sedentary life that he leads. I am not
learned enough to trace the influence of that life in making
him what he is; but I think I can see the result in an overexcited imagination, and I fancy I can trace his exhibiting
his power over the poor cousin and his singing of that wonderful song to no more formidable cause than inordinate selfconceit. I hope the confession will not lower me seriously
in your good opinion; but I must say I have enjoyed my
visit, and, worse still, Miserrimus Dexter really interests
me."
"Does this learned discourse on Dexter mean that you
are going to see him again?" asked Mrs. Macallan.
" I don't know how I may feel about it to-morrow morning," I said," but my impulse at this moment is decidedly to
see him again. I had a little talk with him while you were
away at the other end of the room, and I believe he really
can be of use to me-"
" Of use to you in what?" interposed my mother-in-law.
"In the one object which I have in view-the object, dear
Mrs. 3Macallan, which I regret to say you do not approve."
"And you are going to take him into your confidence?
to open your whole mind to such a man as the man we have
just left?"
"Yes, if I think of it to-morrow as I think of it to-night.
I dare say it is a risk; blt I must run risks. I know I am
not prudent; but prudence won't help a woman in my position, with my end to gain."
Mrs. Macallan made no further remonstrance in words.
She opened a capacious pocket in firont of the carriage,
and took fiom it a box of matches and a railway readin(glamp.
"You provoke me," said the old lady, "into showing you
what your husband thinks of this new whim of yours. I
have got his letter with me-his last letter firom Spain. You
shall judge for yourself, you poor deluded young creature,
whether my son is worthy of the sacrifice-the useless and
hopeless sacrifice-which you are bent on making of yourself
for his sake. Strike a light!"
I willingly obeyed her. Ever since she had informed me
of Eustace's departure to Spain I had been eager for more
news of him, for something to sustain my spirits, after so



THE LAW AND THE LADY.                197
much that had disappointed and depressed me. Thus far' I
did not even know whether my husband thought of me
sometimes in his self-imposed exile. As to his regretting
already the rash act which had separated us, it was still too
soon to begin hoping for that.
The lamp having been lighted, and fixed in its place between the two front windows of the carriage, Mrs. Macallan
produced her son's letter. There is. no folly like the folly
of love. It cost me a hard struggle to restrain myself fiom
kissing the paper on which the dear hand had rested.
"There!" said my mother-in-law.  "Begin on the second
page, the page devoted to you. Read straight down to the
last line at the bottom, and, in God's name, come back to
your senses, child, before it is too late!"
I followed my instructions, and read these words:
" Can I trust myself to write of Valeria? I must write
of her. Tell me how she is, how she looks, what she is doing. I am always thinking of her. Not a day passes but I
mourn the loss of her. Oh, if she had only been contented
to let matters rest as they were! Oh, if she had never discovered the miserable truth!
" She spoke of reading the Trial when I saw her last. Has
she persisted in doing so?  I believe-I say this seriously,
mother-I believe the shame and the horror of it would
have been the death of me if I had met her face to face when
she first knew of the ignominy that I have suffered, of the
infamous suspicion of which I have been publicly made the
subject. Think of those pure eyes looking at a man who
has been accused (and never wholly absolved) of the foulest
and the vilest of all murders, and then think of what that
man must feel if he have any heart and any sense of shame
left in him. I sicken as I write of it.
"Does she still meditate that hopeless project-the offspring, poor angel, of her artless, unthinking generosity?
Does she still fancy that it is in her power to assert my innocence before the world? Oh, mother (if she do), use your
utmost influence to make her give up the idea! Spare her
the humiliation, the disappointment, the insult, perhaps, to
which she may innocently expose herself. For her sake, for
my sake, leave no means untried to attain this righteous,
this merciful end.
"I send her no message-I dare not do it. Say nothing,



198            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
when you see her, which can recall me to her memory. On
the contrary, help her to forget me as soon as possible. The
kindest thing I can do —the one atonement I can make to
her-is to drop out of herlife."
With those wretched words it ended. I handed his letter
back to his mother in silence. She said but little on her side.
"If this doesn't discourage you," she remarked, slowly
folding up the letter, " nothing will.' Let us leave it there,
and say no more."
I made no answer-I was crying behind my veil. My domestic prospect looked so dreary! my unfortunate husband
was so hopelessly misguided, so pitiably wrong! The one
chance for both of us, and the one consolation for poor Me,
was to hold to my desperate resolution more firmly than
ever. If I had wanted any thing to confirm me in this view,
and to arm me against the remonstrances of every one of
my firiends, Eustace's letter would have proved more than sufficient to answer the purpose. At least he had not forgotten
me; he thought of me, and he mourned.the loss of me every
day of his life. That was encouragement enough-for the
present. "If Ariel calls for me in the pony-chaise to-morrow," I thought to myself, " with Ariel I go."
lMrs. Macallan set me down at Benjamin's door.
I mentioned to her at parting-I stood sufficiently in awe
of her to put it off till the last moment-that Miserrimus
Dexter had arranged to send his cousin and his pony-chaise
to her residence on the next day; and I inquired thereupon
whether my mother-in-law would permit me to call at her
house to wait for the appearance of the cousin, or whether
she would prefer sending the chaise on to Benjamin's cottage. I fully expected an explosion of anger to follow this
bold avowal of my plans for the next day. The old lady
agreeably surprised me. She proved that she had really
taken a liking to me: she kept her temper.
" If you persist in going back to Dexter, you certainly shall
not go to him from my door," she said. "But I hope you
will not persist. I hope you will awake a wiser woman tomorrow morning."
The morning came. A little before noon the arrival of the
pony-chaise was announced at the door, and a letter was
brought in to me fiom Mirs. 1Macallan.



THE LAW AND THE LADY.              199
"I have no right to control your movements," my motherin-law wrote. "I send the chaise to Mr. Benjamin's house;
and I sincerely trust that you will not take your place in it.
I wish I could persuade you, Valeria, how truly I am your
fiiend. I have been thinking about you anxiously in the
wakeful hours of the night. H/ow anxiously, you will understand when I tell you that I now reproach myself for not having done more than I did to prevent your unhappy marriage.
And yet, what more I co'ld have done I don't really know.
Mly son admitted to me that he was courting you under an
assumed name, but he never told me what the name was, or
who you were, or where your fiiends lived. Perhaps I ought
to have taken measures to find this out. Perhaps, if I had
succeeded, I ought to have interfered and enlightened you,
even at the sad sacrifice of making an enemy of my own son.
I honestly thought I did my duty in expressing my disapproval, and in refusing to be present at the marriage. Was
I too easily satisfied?  It is too late to ask. Why do I
trouble you with an old woman's vain misgivings and regrets? My child, if you come to any harm, I shall feel (indirectly) responsible for it. It is this uneasy state of mind
which sets me writing, with nothing to say that can interest
you. Don't go to Dexter! The fear has been pursuing me
all night that your going to Dexter will end badly. Write
him an excuse. Valeria! I firmly believe you will repent
it if you return to that house,"
Was ever a woman more plainly warned, more carefully
advised, than I?  And yet warning and advice were both
thrown away on me.
Let me say for myself that I was really touched by the
kindness of my mother-in-law's letter, though I was not
shaken by it in the smallest degree. As long as I lived,
moved, and thought, my one purpose now was to make Miserrimus Dexter confide to me his ideas on the subject of
MIrs. Eustace Macallan's death. To those ideas I looked as
my guiding stars along the dark way on which I was going.
I wrote back to Mrs. Macallan, as I really felt, gratefully and
penitently. And then I went out to the chaise.



200            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
CHAPTER XXVII.
MR. DEXTER AT HOME.
I FOUND all the idle boys in the neighborhood collected
around the pony-chaise, expressing, in the occult language of
slang, their high enjoyment and appreciation at the appearance of "Ariel" in her man's jacket and hat. The pony was
fidgety-he felt the influence of the popular uproar. His
d-river sat, whip in hand, magnificently impenetrable to the
gibes and jests that were flying around her. I said " Goodmorning" on getting into the chaise. Ariel only.said "Gee
up!" and started the pony.
I made up my mind to perform the journey to the distant
northern suburb in silence. It was evidently useless for me
to attempt to speak, and experience informed me that I need
not expect to hear a word fall from the lips of my companion.
Experience, however, is not always infallible. After driving
for half an hour in stolid silence, Ariel astounded me by suddenly bursting into speech.
"Do you know what we are coming to?" she asked, keeping her eyes straight between the pony's ears.
"No," I answered. "I don't know the road. What are
we coming to?"
"We are conling to a canal."
"Well?"
"Well, I have half a mind to upset you in the canal."
This formidable announcement appeared to require some
explanation. I took the liberty of asking for it.
"Why should you upset me?" I inquired.
"Because I hate you," was the cool and candid reply.
"What have I done to offend you?" I asked next.
"What do you want with the MIaster?" Ariel asked, in
her turn.
"Do you mean Mr. Dexter?"
" Yes."
"I want to have some talk with Mr. Dexter."
"You don't! You want to take my place. You want to
brush his hair and oil his beard, instead of me. You wretch!"



THE LAW' AND TTIE LADY.            201
I now began to understand. The idea which Miserrimnus
Dexter had jestingly put into her head, in exhibiting her to
us on the previous night, had been ripening slowly in that
dull brain, and had found its way outward into words, about
fifteen hours afterward, under the irritating influence of my
presence!
"I don't want to touch his hair or his beard," I said. "I
leave that entirely to you."
She looked around at me, her fat face flushing, her dull eyes
dilating, with the unaccustomed effort to express herself in
speech, and to understand what was said to her in return.
"Say that again," she burst out. "And say it slower this
time."
I said it again, and I said it slower.
"Swear it!" she cried, getting more and more excited.
I preserved my gravity (the canal was just visible in the
distance), and swore it.
"Are you satisfied now?" I asked.
There was no answer. Her last resources of speech were
exhausted. The strange creature looked back again straight
between the pony's ears, emitted hoarsely a grunt of relief,
and never more looked at me, never more spoke to me, for
the rest of the journey. We drove past the banks of the
canal, and I escaped immersion. We rattled, in our jingling
little vehicle, through the streets and across the waste patches of ground, which I dimly remembered in the darkness, and.
which lo-oked more squalid and more hideous than ever in
the broad daylight. The chaise turned down a lane, too
narrow for the passage of any larger vehicle, and stopped at
a wall and a gate that were new objects to me. Opening
the gate with her key, and leading the pony, Ariel introduced
me to the back garden and yard of Miserrimus Dexter's rotten and rambling old house. The pony walked off independently to his stable, with the chaise behind him. MIy silent companion led me through a bleak and barren kitchen,
and along a stone passage. Opening a door at the end, she
admitted me to the back of the hall, into which fMrs. Macallan and I had penetrated by the fiont entrance to the house.
Here Ariel lifted a whistle which hung around her neck, and
blew the shrill trilling notes with the sound of which I was
already familiar as the means of communication between
Miserrimus Dexter and his slave. The whistling over, the



202             THE LAW AND THE LADY.
slave's unwilling lips struggled into speech for the last
time.
" Wait till you hear the 3lIaster's whistle," she said; " then
go up-stairs."
So! I was to be whistled for like a dog! And, worse still,
there was no help for it but to submit like a dog. Had
Ariel any excuses to make? Nothing of the sort.
She turned her shapeless back on me and vanished into
the kitchen region of the house.
After waiting for a minute or two, and hearing no signal
from the floor above, I advanced into the broader and brighter
part of the hall, to look by daylight at the pictures which I
had only imperfectly discovered in the darkness of the night.
A painted inscription in many colors, just under the cornice
of the ceiling, informed me that the works on the walls were
the production of the all-accomplished Dexter. himself. Not
satisfied with being poet and composer, he was painter as
well. On one wall the subjects were described as "Illustrations of the Passions;" on the other, as "Episodes in the Life
of the Wandering Jew." Chance speculators like myself
were gravely warned, by means of the inscription, to view
the pictures as efforts of pure imagination.  "Persons who
look for mere Nature in works of Art" (the inscription announced), "are persons to whom Mr. Dexter does not address
himself with the brush. Ile relies entirely on his imagination. Nature puts him out."
Taking due care to dismiss all ideas of Nature fiom my
mind, to begin with, I looked at the pictures which represented the Passions first.
Little as I knew critically of Art, I could see that Miserrimus Dexter knew still less of the rules of drawing, color,
and composition. His pictures were, in the strictest;meaning of that expressive word, Daubs. The diseased: and riotous delight'of.the painter in representing Horrors was (with
certain exceptions to be hereafter mentioned) the one remarkable quality that I could discover in the series of his
works.
The first of the Passion pictures illustrated Revenge. A
corpse, in fancy costume, lay on the bank of a foaming river,
under the shade of a giant tree. An infuriated man, also in
fancy costume, stood astride over the dead body, with his
sword lifted to the lowering sky, and watched, with a horrid



THE LAW AND THE LADY.              203
expression of delight, the blood of the man whom he had
just killed dripping slowly in a procession of bi( red drops
down the broad blade of his weapon. The next picture illustrated Cruelty, in many compartments. In one I saw a
disemboweled horse savagely spurred on by his rider at a
bull-fiht. In another; an aced philosopher was dissecting a
living cat, and gloating over his work. In a third, two pagans politely congratulated each other on the torture of two
saints: one saint was roasting on a gridiron; the other,
hung up to a tree by his heels, had been just skinned, and
was not quite dead yet. Feeling no great desire, after these
specimens, to look at any more of the illustrated Passions, I
turned to the opposite wall to be instructed in the career of
the Wandering Jew. Here a second inscription informed
me that the painter considered the Flying Dutchman to be
no other than the Wanderingc Jew, pursuing his interminable
journey by sea. The marine adventures of this mysterious
personage were the adventures chosen for representation by
Dexter's brush. The first picture showed me a harbor on a
rocky coast. A vessel was at anchor, with the helmsman
singing on the deck. The sea in the offing was black and
rolling; thunder-clouds lay low on the horizon, split by
broad flashes of lightning. In the glare of the lightning,
heaving and pitching, appeared the misty form of the Phantom Ship approaching the shore. In this work, badly as it
was painted, there were really signs of a powerful imagination, and even of a poetical feeling for the supernatural.
The next picture showed the Phantom Ship, moored (to the
horror and astonishment of the helmsman) behind the earthly vessel in the harbor. The Jew had stepped on shore.
His boat was on the beach. Iis crew —little men with
stony, white faces, dressed in funereal black-sat in silent
rows on the seats of the boat, with their oars in their lean,
long hands. The Jew, also in black, stood with his eyes and
hands raised imploringly to the thunderous heaven. The
wild creatures of land and sea-the tiger, the rhinoceros, the
crocodile, the sea-serpent, the shark, and the devil-fish-surrounded the accursed Wanderer in a mystic circle, daunted
and fascinated at the sight of him. The lightning was gone.
The sky and sea had darkened to a great black blank. A
faint and lurid light lit the scene, falling downward front a
torch, brandished by an avenging Spirit that hovered over



204            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
the Jew on outspread vulture wings. WVild as the picture
might be in its conception, there was a suggestive power in
it which I confess strongly impressed me. The mysterious
silence in the house, and my strange position at the moment,
no doubt had their effect on my mind. While I was still
looking at the ghastly composition before me, the shrill trilling sound of the whistle up-stairs burst on the stillness.
For the moment my nerves were so completely upset that I
started with a cry of alarm. I felt a momentary impulse to
open the door and run out. The idea of trusting myself
alone with the man who had painted those fiightful pictures
actually terrified me; I was obliged to sit down on one of
the hall chairs. Some minutes passed before my mind recovered its balance, and I began to feel like my own ordinary
self again. The whistle sounded impatiently for the second
time. I rose and ascended the broad flight of stairs which
led to the first story. To draw back at the point which I
had now reached would have utterly degraded me in my own
estimation. Still, my heart did certainly beat faster than
usual as I approached the door of the circular anteroom;
and I honestly acknowledge that I saw my own imprudence,
just then, in a singularly vivid light.
There was a glass over the mantel-piece in the anteroom.
I lingered for a moment (nervous as I was) to see how I
looked in'the glass.
The hanging tapestry over the inner door had been left
partially drawn aside. Softly as I moved, the dog's ears of
5Miserrimus Dexter caught the sound of my dress on the
floor. The fine tenor voice, which I had last heard singing,
called to me softly.
"Is that Mrs.Valeria?  Please don't wait there. Come
in!"
I entered the inner room.
The wheeled chair advanced to meet me, so slowly and so
softly that I hardly knew it again. MIiserrimus Dexter languidly held out his hand. His head inclined pensively to
one side; his large blue eyes looked at me piteously. Not
a vestige seemed to be left of the raging, shouting creature
of my first visit, who was Napoleon at one moment, and
Shakespeare at another. IMr. Dexter of the morning was
a mild, thoughtful, melancholy man, who only recalled Mr.
Dexter of the night by the inveterate oddity of his dress.



THE LAW AND THE LADY.               205
His jacket, on this occasion, was of pink quilted silk. The
coverlet which hid his deformity matched the jacket in pale
sea-green satin; and, to complete these strange vagaries of
costume, his wrists were actually adorned with massive
bracelets of gold, formed on the severely simple models
which have descended to us from ancient times.
"How good of you to cheer and charm me by coming
here!" he said, in his most mournful and most musical tones.
"I have dressed, expressly to receive you, in the prettiest
clothes I have. Don't be surprised. Except in this ignoble
and material nineteenth century, men have always worn
precious stuffs and beautiful colors as well as women. A
hundred years ago a gentleman in pink silk was a gentleman
properly dressed. Fifteen hundred years ago the patricians
of the classic times wore bracelets exactly like mine. I despise the brutish contempt for beauty and the mean dread of
expense which degrade a gentleman's costume to black cloth,
and limit a gentleman's ornaments to a finger-ring, in the
age I live in. I_like to be bright and beautiful, especially
when brightness and beauty come to see me. You don't
know ]low precious your society is to me. This is one of my
melancholy days. Tears rise unbidden to my eyes. I sigh
and sorrow over myself; I languish for pity. Just think of
what I am! A poor solitary creature, cursed with a frightful deformity. How pitiable! how dreadful! Mly affectionate heart-wasted.  My extraordinary talents-useless or
misapplied. Sad! sad! sad!  Please pity me."
His eyes were positively filled with tears —tears of compassion for himself! He looked at me and spoke to me with
the wailing, querulous entreaty of a sick child wanting to be
nursed. I was utterly at a loss what to do. It was perfectly ridiculous-but I was never more embarrassed in my life.
"Please pity me!" he repeated. " Don't be cruel. I only
ask a little thing. Pretty 3Mrs.Valeria, say you pity me!"
I said I pitied him —and I felt that I blushed as I did it.
"Thank you," said Miiserrimus Dexter, humbly. "It does
me good. Go a little farther. Pat my hand."
I tried to restrain myself; but the sense of the absurdity
of this last petition (quite gravely addressed to me, remember!) was too strong to be controlled. I burst out laughing.
Miserrimus Dexter looked at me with a blank astonishment which only increased my merriment. Had I offended



206            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
him? Apparently not. Recovering from his astonishment,
he laid his head luxuriously on the back of his chair, with
the expression of a man who was listening critically to a performance of some sort., When I had quite exhausted myself,
he raised his head, and clapped his shapely white hands, and
honored me with an " encore."
"Do it again," he said, still in the same childish way.
"Merry llMrs. Valeria, yout have a musical laugh —I have a
musical ear. Do it again."
I was serious enough by this time. "I am ashamed of
myself, Mr. Dextelr," I said. "Pray forgive me."
He made no answer to this; I doubt if he heard me. His
variable temper appeared to be in course of undergoing some
new change. He sat looking at my dress (as I supposed)
with a steady and anxious attention, gravely forming his
own conclusions, steadfastly pursuing his own train of
thought.
"Mrs. Valeria," lie burst out, suddenly, "you are not comfortable in that chair."
" Pardon me," I replied; "I am quite comfortable."
"Pardon me," he rejoined. "There is a chair of Indian
basket-work at that end of the room which is much better
suited to you. Will you accept my apologies if I am rude
enough to allow you to fetch it for yourself? I have a reason."
He had a reason! What new piece of eccentricity was he
about to exhibit? I rose and fetched the chair. It was light
enough to be quite easily carried. As I returned to him,
I noticed that his eyes were strangely employed in what
seemed to be the closest scrutiny of my dress. And, stranger
still, the result of this appeared to be partly to interest and
partly to distress him.
I placed the chair near him, and was about to take my seat
in it, when he sent me back again, on another errand, to the
end of the room.
"Oblige me indescribably," he said. "There is a handscreen hanging on the wall, which matches the chair. We
are rather near the fire here. You may find the screen useful.
Once more forgive me for letting you fetch it for yourself.
Once more let me assure you that I have a reason."
Here was his "reason," reiterated, emphatically reiterated,
for the second time! Curiosity made me as completely the



208            THE. LAW AND THE. LADY.
"We were speaking," I answered, "of Mrs. Eustace ~Macallan's death, and we were saying to one another —"
He interrupted me, leaning forward- eagerly in his chair.
"Yes! yes!" he exclaimed. "And I was wondering what
interest you could have in.penetrating the mystery of her
death. Tell me! Confide in me! I am dying to know!"
"Not even you have a stronger interest in that subject
than the interest that I feel," I said. "The happiness of my
whole life to come depends on my clearing up the mystery."
"Good God-why?" he cried. "Stop! I am exciting
myself. I mustn't do that. I must have all my wits about
me; I mustn't wander. The thing is too serious. Wait a
minute!"
An elegant little basket was hooked on to one of the arms
of his chair. He opened it, and drew out a strip of embroidery partially finished, with the necessary materials for working, all complete. We looked at each other across the embroidery. He noticed my surprise.
"Women," he said, "wisely compose their minds, and help
themselves to think quietly, by doing needle-work. Why
are men such fools as to deny themselves the same admirable
resource-the simple and soothing occupation which keeps
the nerves steady and leaves the mind calm and free? As a
man, I follow the women's wise example. Mrs. Valeria, permit me to compose myself."
Gravely arranging his embroidery, this extraordinary being began to work with the patient and nimble dexterity of
an accomplished needle-woman.
" Now,"' said Miserrimus Dexter, " if you are ready, I am.
You talk-I work. Please begin."
I obeyed him, and began.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
IN THE DARK.
FWITH such a man as Miserrimus Dexter, and with such a
purpose as I had in view, no half-confidences were possible.
I must either risk the most unreserved acknowledgment of
the interests that I really had at stake, or I must make the
best excuse that occurred to me for abandoning my contem3 I-  VIVI1



THE LAW AND THE LADY.              209
plated experiment at the last moment. In my present critical situation, no such refuge as a middle course lay before
me-even if I had been inclined to take it. As things were,
I ran all risks, and plunged headlong into my own affairs at
starting.
"Thus far, you know little or nothing about me, Mr. Dexter," I said. "You are, as I believe, quite unaware that my
husband and I are not living together at the present time."
"Is it necessary to mention your husband?" he asked, coldly, without looking up fiom his embroidery, and without
pausing in his work.
" It is absolutely necessary," I answered. "I can explain
myself to you in no other way."
HIe bent his head, and sighed resignedly.
"You and your husband are not living together at the
present time," he resumed. "Does that mean that Eustace
has left you?"
"He has left me, and has gone abroad."
"Without any necessity for it?"
" Without the least necessity."
" Has he appointed no time for his return to you?"
"If he persevere in his present resolution, Mr. Dexter,
Eustace will never return to me."
For the first time he raised his head from his embroidery
-with a sudden appearance of interest.
"Is the quarrel so serious as that?" he asked. "Are you
free of each other, pretty Mrs. Valeria, by common consent
of both parties?"
The tone in which he put the question was not at all to
my liking. The look he fixed on me was a look which unpleasantly suggested that I had trusted myself alone with
him, and that he might end in taking advantage of it. I reminded him quietly, by my manner more than by my words,
of the respect which he owed to me.
"You are entirely mistaken," I said. "There is no anger
-there is not even a misunderstanding between us. Our
parting has cost bitter sorrow, MIr. Dexter, to him and to
me."
IIe submitted to be set right with ironical resignation.
"I am all attention," he said, threading his needle. "Pray
go on; I won't interrupt you again."  Acting on this invitation, I told him the truth about my husband and myself



THE LAW AND THE LADY.              211
You're not offended with me —are you? Make it up; and I
will give you this pretty piece of embroidery when I have
done it. I am only a poor, solitary, deformed wretch, with
a quaint turn of mind; I mean no harm. Forgive me! indulge me! enlighten me!"
He resumed his childish ways; he recovered his innocent
smile, with the odd little puckers and wrinkles accompanying
it at the corners of his eyes. I began to doubt whether I
might not have been unreasonably hard on him. I penitently resolved to be more considerate toward his infirmities of
mind and body during the remainder of my visit.
" Let me go back for a moment, Mr. Dexter, to past times
at Gleninch," I said. " You agree with me in believing Eustace to be absolutely innocent of the crime for which he was
tried. Your evidence at the Trial tells me that."
He paused over his work, and looked at me with a grave
and stern attention which presented his face in quite a new
light.
"That is our opinion," I resumed. "But it was not the
opinion of the Jury. Their verdict, you remember, was Not
Proven. In plain English, the Jury who tried my husband
declined to express their opinion, positively and publicly,
that he was innocent. Am I right?"
Instead of answering, he suddenly put his embroidery back
in the basket, and moved the machinery of his chair, so as to
bring it close by mine.
" Who told you this?" he asked.
" I found it for myself in a book."
Thus far his face had expressed steady attention-and no
more. Now, for the first time, I thought I saw something
darkly passing over him which betrayed itself to my mind
as rising distrust.
"Ladies are not generally in the habit of troubling their
heads about dry questions of law," he said. "Mrs. Eustace
Macallan the Second, you must have some very powerful
motive for turning your studies that way."
"I have a very powerful motive, Mr. Dexter. My husband
is resigned to the Scotch Verdict. His mother is resigned
to it. His friends (so far as I know) are resigned to it —"
"Well?"
" Well! I don't agree with my husband, or his mother, or
his friends. I refuse to submit to the Scotch Verdict."
K



212            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
The instant I said those words, the madness in him which
I had hitherto denied, seemed to break out. He suddenly
stretched himself over his chair: he pounced on me, with a
hand on each of my shoulders; his wild eyes questioned me
fiercely, fiantically, within a few inches of my face.
" What do you mean?" he shouted, at the utmost pitch
of his ringing and resonant voice.
A deadly fear of him shook me. I did my best to hide
the outward betrayal of it. By look and word, I showed
him, as firmly as I could, that I resented the liberty he had
taken with me.
"Remove your hands, sir," I said, "and retire to your
proper place."
He obeyed me mechanically. IIe apologized to me mechanically. His whole mind was evidently still filled with
the words that I had spoken to him, and still bent on discovering what those words meant.
"I beg your pardon," he said; " I humbly beg your pardon. The subject excites me, frightens me, maddens me.
You don't know what a difficulty I have in controlling
myself. Never mind. Don't take me seriously. Don't be
fiightened at me. I am so ashamed of myself — I feel so
small and so miserable at having offended you. Make me
suffer for it. Take a stick and'beat me. Tie me down in
my chair. Call up Ariel, who is as strong as a horse, and
tell her to hold me. Dear Mrs. Valeria! Injured Mrs. Valeria! I'll endure any thing in the way of punishment, if
you will only tell me what you mean by not submitting to
the Scotch Verdict." He backed his chair penitently as he
made that entreaty. "Am  I far enough away yet?" he
asked, with a rueful look. "Do I still frighten you? I'll
drop out of sight, if you prefer it, in the bottom of the chair."
He lifted the sea-green coverlet. In another moment he
would have disappeared like a puppet in a show if I had not
stopped him.
"Say nothing more, and do nothing more; I accept your
apologies," I said. "When I tell you that I refuse to submit to the opinion of the Scotch Jury, I mean exactly what
my words express. That verdict has left a stain on my husband's character. He feels the stain bitterly. How bitterly no one knows so well as I do. His sense of hi's degradation is the sense that has parted him from me. It is not



THE LAW AND THE LADY.              213
enough for him that I am persuaded of his innocence. Nothing will bring him back to me-nothing will persuade Eustace that I think him worthy to be the guide and companion
of my life -but the proof of his innocence, set before the
Jury which doubts it, and the public which doubts it, to this
day. He and his fiiends and his lawyers all despair of ever
finding that proof now. But I am his wife; and none of
you love him as I love him. I alone refuse to despair; I
alone refuse to listen to reason. If God spare me, Mr. Dexter, I dedicate my life to the vindication of my husband's innocence. You are his old friend-I am here to ask you to
help me."
It appeared to be now my turn to fiighten him. The
color left his face. He passed his hand restlessly over his
forehead, as if he were trying to brush some delusion out of
his brain.
" Is this one of my dreams?" he asked, faintly. "Are you
a Vision of the night?"
"I am only a friendless woman," I said, " who has lost all
that she loved and prized, and who is trying to win it back
again."
He began to move his chair nearer to me once more. I
lifted my hand. He stopped the chair directly. There was
a moment of silence. We sat watching one another. I saw
his hands tremble as he laid them on the coverlet; I saw his
face grow paler and paler, and his under-lip drop. What
dead and buried remembrances had I brought to life in him,
in all their olden horror?
He was the first to speak again.
"So this is your interest," he said, "in clearing up the
mystery of Mrs. Eustace Macallan's death?"
" Yes."
" And you believe that I can help you?"
" I do."
He slowly lifted one of his hands, and pointed at me with
his long forefinger.
"You suspect somebody," he said.
The tone in which he spoke was low and threatening; it
warned me to'be careful. At the same time, if I now shut
him out of my confidence, I should lose the reward that
might yet be to come, for all that I had suffered and risked
at that perilous interview.



214            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
"You suspect somebody," he repeated.
"Perhaps!" was all that I said in return.
" Is the person within your reach?"
" Not yet."
"Do you know where the person is?"
" No."
He laid his head languidly on the back of his chair, with
a trembling long-drawn sigh. Was he disappointed? Or
was he relieved? Or was he simply exhausted in mind and
body alike? TWVho could fathom him? Who could say?
" Will you give me five minutes?" he asked, feebly and
wearily, without raising his head. " You know already how
any reference to events at Gleninch excites and shakes me.
I shall be fit for it again, if you will kindly give me a few
minutes to myself. There are books in the next room. Please
excuse me."
I at once retired to the circular antechamber. He followed me in his chair, and closed the door between us.
CHAPTER XXIX.
IN THE LIGHT.
A LITTLE interval of solitude was a relief to me, as well as
to Miserrimus Dexter.
Startling doubts beset me as I walked restlessly backward
and forward, now in the anteroom, and now in the corridor
outside. It was plain that I had (quite innocently) disturbed the repose of some formidable secrets in Miserrimus Dexter's mind. I confused and wearied my poor brains in trying to guess what the secrets might be. All my ingenuity
-as after-events showed me-was wasted on speculations
not one of which even approached the truth. I was on surer
ground when I arrived at the conclusion that Dexter had
really kept every mortal creature out of his confidence. He
could never have betrayed such serious signs of disturbance
as I had noticed in him, if he had publicly acknowledged at
the Trial, or if he had privately communicated to any chosen friend, all that he knew of the tragic and terrible drama
acted in the bedchamber at Gleninch. What powerful influence had induced him to close his lips? Had he been silent



THE LAW AND THE LADY.              215
in mercy to others'? or in dread of consequences to himself?
Impossible to tell! Could I hope that he would confide to
Me what he had kept secret from Justice and Friendship
alike? When he knew what I really wanted of him, would
he arm me, out of his own stores of knowledge, with the
weapon that would win me victory in the struggle to come?
The chances were all against it —there was no denying that.
Still theend was worth trying for. The caprice of the moment might yet stand my fiiend, with such a wayward being
as Miserrimus Dexter. My plans and projects were sufficiently strange, sufficiently wide of the ordinary limits of a woman's thoughts and actions, to attract his sympathies. " Who
knows," I thought to myself, " if I may not take his confidence by surprise, by simply telling him the truth?"
The interval expired; the door was thrown open; the voice
of my host summoned me again to the inner room.
" Welcome back!" said Miserrimus Dexter. "Dear Mrs.
Valeria, I am quite myself again. How are you?"
He looked and spoke with the easy cordiality of an old
friend. During the period of my absence, short as it was,
another change had passed over this most multiform of living beings. His eyes sparkled with good-humor; his cheeks
were flushing under a new excitement of some sort. Even
his dress had undergone alteration since I had seen it last.
He now wore an extemporized cap of white paper; his ruffles were tucked up; a clean apron was thrown over the seagreen coverlet. He backed his chair before me, bowing and
smiling, and waved me to a seat with the grace of a dancing
master, chastened by the dignity of a lord in waiting.
"I am going to cook," he announced, with the most engaging simplicity. "We both stand in need of refreshment
before we return to the serious business of our interview.
You see me in my cook's dress; forgive it. There is a form
in these things. I am a great stickler for forms. I have been
taking some wine. Please sanction that proceeding by taking some wine too."
He filled a goblet of ancient Venetian glass with a purplered liquor, beautiful to see.
"Burgundy!" he said-" the king of wines. And this is
the king of Burgundies - Clos Vougeot. I drink to your
health and happiness!"
He filled a second goblet for himself, and honored the toast



216            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
by draining it to the bottom. I now understood the sparkle
in his eyes and the flush in his cheeks. It was my interest
not to offend him. I drank a little of his wine, and I quite
agreed with him. I thought it delicious.
"What shall we eat?" he asked. "It must be something
worthy of our Clos Vougeot. Ariel is good at roasting and
boiling joints, poor wretch! but I don't insult your taste by
offering you Ariel's cookery. Plain joints!" he exclaimed,
with an expression of refined disgust. "Bah! A man who
eats a plain joint is only one remove fiom a cannibal or a
butcher. Will you leave it to me to discover something
more worthy of us'? Let us go to the kitchen."
He wheeled his chair around, and invited me to accompany
him with a courteous wave of his hand.
I followed the chair to some closed curtains at one end of
the room, which I had not hitherto noticed. Drawing aside
the curtains, he revealed to view an alcove, in which stood a
neat little gas-stove for cooking.. Drawers and cupboards,
plates, dishes, and saucepans, were ranged around the alcove
-all on a miniature scale, all scrupulously bright and clean.
"Welcome to the kitchen!" said Miserrimus Dexter. He
drew out of a recess in the wall a marble slab, which served as
a table, and reflected profoundly, with his hand to his head.
" I have it!" he cried, and opening one of the cupboards next,
took from it a black bottle of a form that was new to me.
Sounding this bottle with a spike, he pierced and produced
to view some little irregularly formed black objects, which
might have been familiar enough to a woman accustomed
to the luxurious tables of the rich, but which were a new
revelation to a person like myself, who had led a simple
country life in the house of a clergyman with small means.
When I saw my host carefully lay out these occult substances of uninviting appearance on a clean napkin, and then
plunge once more into profound reflection at the sight of
them, my curiosity could be no longer restrained. I ventured to say, "What are those things, Mr. Dexter, and are we
really going to eat them?"
He started at the rash question, and looked at me with
hands outspread in irrepressible astonishment.
"Where is our boasted progress?" he cried. "What is
education but a name? Here is a cultivated person who
doesn't know Truffles when she sees them!"



THE LAW AND THE LADY.              217
"I have heard of truffles," I answered, humbly, "but I
never saw them before. We had no such foreign luxuries as
those, Mr. Dexter, at home in the North."
Miserritnus Dexter lifted one of the truffles tenderly on his
spike, and held it up to me in a favorable light.
" Make the most of one of the few first sensations in this
life which has no ingredient of disappointment lurking under
the surface," he said. "Look at it; meditate over it. You
shall eat it, Mrs.Valeria, stewed in Burgundy!"
He lighted the gas for cooking with the air of a man who
was about to offer me an inestimable proof of his good-will.
" Forgive me if I observe the most absolute silence," he
said, "dating from the moment when I take this in my hand."
He produced a bright little stew-pan fiom his collection of
culinary utensils as he spoke. "Properly pursued, the Art
of Cookery allows of no divided attention," he continued,
gravely. " In that observation you will find the reason why
no woman ever has reached, or ever will reach, the highest
distinction as a cook. As a rule, women are incapable of
absolutely concentrating their attention on any one occupation for any given time. Their minds will run on something
else-say, typically, for the sake of illustration, their sweetheart or their new bonnet. The one obstacle, Mrs.Valeria,
to your rising equal to the men in the various industrial
processes of life is not raised, as the women vainly suppose,
by the defective institutions of the age they live in. No!
the obstacle is in themselves. No institutions that can be devised to encourage them will ever be strong enough to contend successfully with the sweetheart and the new bonnet.
A little while ago, for instance, I was instrumental in getting
women employed in our local post-office here. The other
day I took the trouble-a serious business to me-of getting
down-stairs, and wheeling myself away to the office to see
how they were getting on. I took a letter with me to register. It had an unusually long address. The registering
woman began copying the address on the receipt form, in a
business-like manner cheering and delightful to see. Halfway through, a little child-sister of one of the other women
employed trotted into the office, and popped under the counter to go and speak to her relative. The registering woman's mind instantly gave way. Her pencil stopped; her
eyes wandered off to the child with a charming expression



218            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
of interest.'Well, Lucy,' she said,'how d'ye do?' Then
she remembered business again, and returned to her receipt.
When I took it across the counter, an important line in the
address of my letter was left out in the copy. Thanks to
Lucy. Now a man in the same position would not have seen
Lucy —he would have been too closely occupied with what he
was about at the moment. There is the whole difference between the mental constitution of the sexes, which no legislation will ever alter as long as the world lasts! What does
it matter? Women are infinitely superior to men in the moral
qualities which are the true adornments of humanity. Be
content-oh, my mistaken sisters, be content with that!"
He twisted his chair around toward the stove. It was useless to dispute the question with him, even if I had felt inclined to do so. He absorbed himself in his stew-pan.
I looked about me in the room.
The same insatiable relish for horrors exhibited downstairs by the pictures in the hall was displayed again here.
The photographs hanging on the wall represented the various forms of madness taken from the life. The plaster casts
ranged on the shelf opposite were casts (after death) of the
heads of famous murderers. A frightful little skeleton of a
woman hung in a cupboard, behind a glazed door, vith this
cynical inscription placed above the skull: " Behold the scaffolding on which beauty is built!" In a corresponding cupboard, with the door wide open, there hung in loose folds a
shirt (as I took it to be) of chamois leather. Touching it
(and finding it to be far softer than any chamois leather that
my fingers had ever felt before), I disarranged the folds, and
disclosed a ticket pinned among them, describing the thing
in these horrid lines: " Skin of a French Marquis, tanned in
the Revolution of Ninety-three. Who says the nobility are
not good for something? They make good leather."
After this last specimen of my host's taste in curiosities,
I pursued my investigation no farther. I returned to my
chair, and waited for the truffles.
After a brief interval, the voice of the poet-painter-composer-and-cook summoned me back to the alcove.
The gas was out. The stew-pan and its accompaniments
had vanished. On the marble slab were two plates, two
napkins, two rolls of bread, and a dish, with another napkin
in it, on which reposed two quaint little black balls. Mi



"IA FRIGHTFUL LITTLE SKELETON OF A WOMAN HUNG IN A CUPBOARD.'
K 2






220            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
say I am quite wrong; but there is one part of my husband's
trial which doesn't at all satisfy me. The defense set up for
him seems to me to have been a complete mistake."
"A complete mistake?" he repeated. " Strange language,
Mrs. Valeria, to say the least of it!" He tried to speak lightly; he took up his goblet of wine; but I could see that I
had produced an effect on him. His hand trembled as it
carried the wine to his lips.
"I don't doubt that Eustace's first wife really asked him
to buy the arsenic," I continued. "I don't doubt that she
used it secretly to improve her complexion. But what I do
not believe is that she died of an overdose of the poison,
taken by mistake."
He put back the goblet of wine on the table near him so
unsteadily that he spilled the greater part of it. For a moment his eyes met mine, then looked down again.
"How do you believe she died?" he inquired, in tones so
low that I could barely hear them.
" By the hand of a poisoner," I answered.
He made a movement as if he were about to start up in the
chair, and sank back again, seized, apparently, with a sudden
faintness.
", Not my husband!" I hastened to add. "You know that
I am satisfied of his innocence."
I saw him shudder. I saw his hands fasten their hold
convulsively on the arms of his chair.
" Who poisoned her?" he asked, still lying helplessly back
in the chair.
At the critical moment my courage failed me. I was
afraid to tell him in what direction my suspicions pointed.
" Can't you guess?" I said.
There was a pause. I supposed him to be secretly following his own train of thought. It was not for long. On a sudden he started up in his chair. The prostration which had
possessed him appeared to vanish in an instant. His eyes
recovered their wild light; his hands were steady again; his
color was brighter than ever. Had he been pondering over
the secret of my interest in Mrs. Beauly? and had he guessed? He had!
" Answer on your word of honor!" he cried. "Don't attempt to deceive me! Is it a woman?"
" It is."



THE LAW AND THE LADY.              221
"What is the first letter of her name? Is it one of the
first three letters of the alphabet?"
" Yes."
B?"
"Yes."
" Beauly?"
"Beauly."
He threw his hands up above his head, and burst into a
fiantic fit of laughter.
"I have lived long enough!" he broke out, wildly. "At
last I have discovered one other person in the world who
sees it as plainly as I do. Cruel Mrs. Valeria! why did you
torture me? Why didn't you own it before?"
"What!" I exclaimed, catching the infection of his excitement. "Are your ideas my ideas? Is it possible that you
suspect Mrs. Beauly too?"
He made this remarkable reply:
"Suspect?" he repeated, contemptuously.  "There isn't
the shadow of a doubt about it. Mrs. Beauly poisoned her."
CHAPTER XXX.
THE INDICTMENT OF MRS. BEAULY.
I STARTED to my feet, and looked at Miserrirnus Dexter.
I was too much agitated to be able to speak to him.
My utmost expectations had not prepared me for the tone
of absolute conviction in which he had spoken. At the best,
I had anticipated that he might, by the barest chance, agree
with me in suspecting Mrs. Beauly. And now his own lips
had said it, without hesitation or reserve! " There isn't the
shadow of a doubt: Mrs. Beauly poisoned her."
"Sit down," he said, quietly.  "There's nothing to be
afraid of. Nobody can hear us in this room."
I sat down again, and recovered myself a little.
"Have you never told any one else what you have just
told me?" was the first question that I put to him.
"Never. No one else suspected her."
"Not even the lawyers?"
"Not even the lawyers. There is no legal evidence against
Mrs. Beauly. There is nothing but moral certainty."



222            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
"'Surely you might have found the evidence, if you had
tried?"
IIe laughed at the idea.
"Look at me!" he said. " How is a man to hunt up evidence who is tied to this chair? Besides, there were other
difficulties in my way. I am not generally in the habit of
needlessly betraying myself-I am a cautious man, though
you may not have noticed it. But my immeasurable hatred
of Mrs. Beauly was not to be concealed. If eyes can tell
secrets, she must have discovered, in my eyes, that I hungered
and thirsted to see her in the hangman's hands. From first
to last, I tell you, Mrs. Borgia-Beauly was on her guard
against me. Can I describe her cunning? All my resources
of language are not equal to the task. Take the degrees of
comparison to give you a faint idea of it: I am positively
cunning; the devil is comparatively cunning; Mrs. Beauly
is superlatively cunning. No! no! If she is ever discovered, at this distance of time, it will not be done by a manit will be done by a woman: a woman whom she doesn't
suspect; a woman who can watch her with the patience of
a tigress in a state of starvation-"
"Say a woman like Me!" I broke out. "I am ready to
try."1
His eyes glittered; his teeth showed themselves viciously
under his mustache; he drummed fiercely with both hands
on the arms of his chair.
"Do you really mean it?" he asked.
" Put me in your position," I answered. "Enlighten me
with your moral certainty (as you call it)-and you shall
see!"
" I'll do it!" he said. " Tell me one thing first. How did
an outside stranger, like you, come to suspect her?"
I set before him, to the best of my ability, the various elements of suspicion which I had collected from the evidence
at the Trial; and I laid especial stress on the fact (sworn to
by the nurse) that Mrs. Beau]y was missing exactly at the
time when Christina Ormsay had left Mrs. Eustace Macallan
alone in her room.
"You have hit it!" cried Miserrimus Dexter. "You are
a wonderful woman! What was she doing on the morning of the day when Mrs. Eustace Macallan died poisoned?
And where was she during the dark hours of the night?



THE LAW AND THE LADY.              223
I can tell you where she was not-she was not in her own
room."
"Not in her own room?" I repeated. "Are you really
sure of that?"
"I am sure of every thing that I say, when I am speaking
of Mrs. Beauly. Mind that: and now listen! This is a
drama; and I excel in dramatic narrative. You shall judge
for yourself.  Date, the twentieth of October.  Scene, the
Corridor, called the Guests' Corridor, at Gleninch. On one
side, a row of windows looking out into the garden. On the
other, a row of four bedrooms, with dressing-rooms attached.
First bedroom (beginning fiom the staircase), occupied by
Mrs. Beauly. Second bedroom, empty. Third bedroom, occupied by Miserrimus Dexter.  Fourth bedroom, empty.
So much for the Scene! The time comes next-the time is
eleven at night. Dexter discovered in his bedroom, reading.
Enter to him Eustace Macallan. Eustace speaks:'My dear
fellow, be particularly careful not to make any noise; don't
bowl your chair up and down the corridor to-night.' Dexter inquires,'Why?' Eustace answers:'Mrs. Beauly has
been dining with some friends in Edinburgh, and has come
back terribly fatigued: she has gone up to her room to rest.'
Dexter makes another inquiry (satirical inquiry, this time):'How does she look when she is terribly fatigued? As
beautiful as ever?' Answer:'I don't know; I have not
seen her; she slipped up-stairs, without speaking to any
body.' Third inquiry by Dexter (logical inquiry, on this
occasion):' If she spoke to nobody, how do you know she is
fatigued?' Eustace hands Dexter a morsel of paper, and answers:'Don't be a fool! I found this on the hall table. Remember what I have told you about keeping quiet; goodnight!' Eustace retires. Dexter looks at the paper, and
reads these lines in pencil:'Just returned. Please forgive
me for going to bed without saying good-night. I have
overexerted myself; I am  dreadfully fatigued.  (Signed)
Helena.' Dexter is by nature suspicious. Dexter suspects
Mrs. Beauly. Never mind his reasons; there is no time to
enter into his reasons now. He puts the case to himself thus:'A weary woman would never have given herself the trouble
to write this. She would have found it much less fatiguing
to knock at the drawing-room door as she passed, and to make
her apologies by word of mouth. I see something here out



224            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
of the ordinary way; I shall make a night of it in my chair.'
Very good. Dexter proceeds to make a night of it. He
opens his door; wheels himself softly into the corridor; locks
the doors of the two empty bedrooms, and returns (with the
keys in his pocket) to his own room.'Now,' says D. to
himself,'if I hear a door softly opened in this part of the
house, I shall know for certain it is Mrs. Beauly's door!'
Upon that he closes his own door, leaving the tiniest little
chink to look through; puts out his light; and waits and
watches at his tiny little chink, like a cat at a mouse-hole.
The corridor is the only place he wants to see; and a lamp
burns there all night. Twelve o'clock strikes; he hears the
doors below bolted and locked, and nothing happens. Halfpast twelve-and nothing still. The house is as silent as
the grave. One o'clock; two o'clock-same silence. Halfpast two —and something happens at last. Dexter hears a
sound close by, in the corridor. It is the sound of a handle
turning very softly in a door-in the only door that can be
opened, the door of Mrs. Beauly's room. Dexter drops noiselessly from his chair onto his hands; lies flat on the floor at
his chink, and listens. He hears the handle closed again;
he sees a dark object flit by him; he pops his head out of
his door, down on the floor where nobody would think of
looking for him. And what does he see? Irs. Beauly!
There she goes, with the long brown cloak over her shoulders, which she wears when she is driving,floating behind her.
In a moment more she disappears, past the fourth bedroom,
and turns at a right angle, into a second corridor, called the
South Corridor. What rooms are in the South Corridor?
There are three rooms. First room, the little study, mentioned in the nurse's evidence. Second room, Mrs. Eustace
Macallan's bedchamber.  Third room, her husband's bedchamber. What does Mrs. Beauly (supposed to be worn out
by fatigue) want in that part of the house at half-past two
in the morning? Dexter decides on running the risk of being seen-and sets off on a voyage of discovery. Do you
know how he gets from place to place without his chair?
Have you seen the poor deformed creature hop on his hands?
Shall he show you how he does it, before he goes on with
his story?"
I hastened to stop the proposed exhibition.
"I saw you hop last night," I said. "Go on! —pray go on
with your stoiry!"



THE LAW AND THE LADY.              225
"Do you like my dramatic style of narrative?" he asked.
"Am I interesting?"
"Indescribably interesting, ~Mr. Dexter. I am eager to
hear more."
He smiled in high approval of his own abilities.
"I am equally good at the autobiographical style," he
said. " Shall we try that next, by way of variety?"
"Any thing you like," I cried, losing all patience with
him, "if you will only go on!"
"Part Two; Autobiographical Style," he announced, with
a wave of his hand. "I hopped along the Guests' Corridor,
and turned into the South Corridor. I stopped at the little
study. Door open; nobody there. I crossed the study to
the second door, communicating with Mrs. Macallan's bedchamber. Locked! I looked through the keyhole. Was
there something hanging over it, on the other side? I can't
say-I only know there was nothing to be seen but blank
darkness. I listened. Nothing to be heard. Same blank
darkness, same absolute silence, inside the locked second door
of Mrs. Eustace's room, opening on the corridor. I went
on to her husband's bedchaniber. I had the worst possible
opinion of Mrs. Beauly-I should not have been in the least
surprised if I had caught her in Eustace's room. I looked
through the keyhole. In this case, the key was out of itor was turned the right way for me-I don't know which.
Eustace's bed was opposite the door. No discovery. I could
see him, all by himself, innocently asleep. I reflected a little.
The back staircase was at the end of the corridor, beyond
me. I slid down the stairs, and looked about me on the
lower floor, by the light of the night-lamp. Doors all fast
locked, and keys outside, so that I could try them myself.
House door barred and bolted. Door leading into the servants' offices barred and bolted. I got back to my own room,
and thought it out quietly. Where could she be? Certainly
in the house, somewhere. Where? I had made sure of the
other rooms; the field of search was exhausted. She could
only be in Mrs. Macallan's room-the one room which had
baffled my investigations; the only room which had not lent
itself to examination. Add to this that the key of the door
in the study, communicating with Mrs. Macallan's room, was
stated in the nurse's evidence to be missing; and don't forget
that the dearest object of Mrs. Beauly's life (on the showing



226            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
of her own letter, read at the Trial) was to be Eustace Macallan's happy wife. Put these things together in your own
mind, and you will know what my thoughts were, as I sat
waiting for events in my chair, without my telling you.'Toward four o'clock, strong as I am, fatigue got the better
of me. I fell asleep. Not for long. I awoke with a start
and looked at my watch. Twenty-five minutes past four.
Had she got back to her room while I was asleep? I hopped
to her door and listened. Not a sound. I softly opened
the door. The room was empty. I went back again to my
own room to wait and watch. It was hard work to keep my
eyes open. I drew up the window to let the cool air refresh
me; I fought hard with exhausted nature, and exhausted
nature won. I fell asleep again. This time it was eight in
the morning when I awoke. I have goodish ears, as you may
have noticed. I heard women's voices talking under my
open window. I peeped out. Mrs. Beauly and her maid in
close confabulation! Mrs. Beauly and her maid looking
guiltily about them to make sure that they were neither
seen nor heard!'Take care, ma'am,' I heard the maid say;'that horrid deformed monster is as sly as a fox. Mlind he
doesn't discover you.' MIrs. Beauly answered,' You go first,
and look out in fiont; I will follow you, and make sure
there is nobody behind us.' With that they disappeared
around the corner of the house. In five minutes more I heard
the door of Mrs. Beauly's room  softly opened and closed
again. Three hours later the nurse met her in the corridor,
innocently on her way to make inquiries at Mrs. Eustace
Macallan's door. What do you think of these cil(cumstances?
What do you think of Mrs. Beauly and her maid having something to say to each other, which they didn't dare say in the
house-for fear of my being behind some door listening to
them? What do you think of these discoveries of mine being made on the very morning when Mrs. Eustace was taken
ill-on the very day when she died by a poisoner's hand?
Do you see your way to the guilty person? And has mad
Miserrimus Dexter been of some assistance to you, so far?"
I was too violently excited to answer him. The way to
the vindication of my husband's innocence was opened to
me at last!
"Where is she?" I cried.  "And where is that servant
who is in her confidence?"



THE LAW AND THE LADY.               227
"I can't tell you," he said. "I don't know."
"Where can I inquire? Call you tell me that?"
He considered a little.
"There is one mall who must know where she is-or who
could find it out for you," he said.
"Who is he? What is his name?"
" He is a ftiend of Eustace's. Major Fitz-David."
"I know him! I am going to dine with him next week.
He has asked you to dine too."
Miserrimus Dexter laughed contemptuously.
"Major Fitz-David may do very well for the ladies," he
said. "The ladies can treat him as a species of elderly human lap-dog. I don't dine with lap-dogs; I have said, No.
You go. He or some of his ladies may be of use to you.
Who are the guests?  Did he tell you?"
"There was a French lady whose name I forget," I said,
"and Lady Clarinda-"
" That will do! She is a firiend of Mrs. Beauly's. She is
sure to know where Mrs. Beauly is.  Come to me the moment you have got your information. Find out if the maid
is with her: she is the easiest to deal with of the two. Only
make the maid open her lips, and we have got Mrs. Beauly.
We crush her," he cried, bringing his hand down like lightning on the last languid fly of the season, crawling over the
arml of his chair-" we crush her as I crush this fly. Stop!
A question-a most important question in dealing with the
maid. Have you got any money?"
" Plenty of money."
He snapped his fingers joyously.
"The maid is ours!" he cried. " It's a matter of pounds,
shillings, and pence with the maid. Wait! Another question. About your name? If you approach Mrs. Beauly in
your own character as Eustace's wife, you approach her as
the woman who has taken her place-you make a mortal
enemy of her at starting. Beware of that!"
My jealousy of Mrs. Beauly, smouldering in me all through
the interview, burst into flames at those words. I could resist it no longer-I was obliged to ask him if my husband
had ever loved her.
"Tell me the truth," I said. "Did Eustace really —?"
He burst out laughing maliciously, he penetrated my jealousy, and guessed my question almost before it had passed
my lips.



THE LAW AND THE LADY.              229
aged himself with a scream of triumph, and leaped rapidly
over chair after chair on his hands-his limbless body now
thrown back from the shoulders, and now thrown forward to
keep the balance-in a manner at once wonderful and horrible to behold. "Dexter's Leap-frog!" he cried, cheerfully,
perching himself with his bird-like lightness on the last of
the prostrate chairs when he had reached the farther end of
the room. "I'm pretty active, Mrs. Valeria, considering I'm
a cripple. Let us drink to the hanging of Mrs. Beauly in
another bottle of Burgundy!"
I seized desperately on the first excuse that occurred to me
for getting away from him.
"You forget," I said-" I must go at once to the Major.
If I don't warn him in time, he may speak of me to Lady
Clarinda by the wrong name."
Ideas of hurry and movement were just the ideas to take
his fancy in his present state. He blew furiously on the
whistle that summoned Ariel from the kitchen regions, and
danced up and down on his hands in the full frenzy of his
delight.
" Ariel shall get you a cab!" he cried. "Drive at a gallop to the Major's. Set the trap for her without losing a
moment. Oh, what a day of days this has been! Oh, what
a relief to get rid of my dreadful secret, and share it with
You! I am suffocating with happiness-I am like the Spirit of the Earth in Shelley's poem." He broke out with the
magnificent lines in "Prometheus Unbound," in which the
Earth feels the Spirit of Love, and bursts into speech. "' The
joy, the triumph, the delight, the madness! the boundless,
overflowing, bursting gladness! the vaporous exultation not
to be confined! Ha! ha! the animation of delight, which
wraps me like an atmosphere of light, and bears me as a
cloud is borne by its own wind.' That's how I feel, Valeria!
-that's how I feel!"
I crossed the threshold while he was still speaking. The
last I saw of him he was pouring out that glorious flood
of words —his deformed body, poised on the overthrown
chair, his face lifted in rapture to some fantastic heaven
of his own making. I slipped out softly into the antechamber. Even as I crossed the room, he changed once
more. I heard his ringing cry; I heard the soft thumpthump of his hands on the floor. He was going down the



230            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
room again, in "Dexter's Leap-frog," flying over the prostrate chairs.
In the hall, Ariel was on the watch for me.
As I approached her, I happened to be putting on my
gloves. She stopped me; and, taking my right arm, lifted
my hand toward her face. Was she going to kiss it? or to
bite it? Neither. She smelt it like a dog-and dropped it
again with a hoarse chuckling laugh.
"You don't smell of his perfumes," she said. "You haven't
touched his beard. Now I believe you. Want a cab?"
" Thank you. I'll walk till I meet a cab."
She was bent on being polite to me — now I had not
touched his beard.
"I say!" she burst out, in her deepest notes.
"Yes?"
"I'm glad I didn't upset you in the canal. There now!"
She gave me a fi'iendly smack on the shoulder which nearly knocked me down-relapsed, the instant after, into her
leaden stolidity of look and manner-and led the way out
by the front door. I heard her hoarse chuckling laugh as
she locked the gate behind me. My star was at last in the
ascendant! In one and the same day I had found my way
into the confidence of Ariel and Ariel's master.
CHAPTER XXXI.
THE DEFENSE OF MRS. BEAULY.
THE days that elapsed before Major Fitz-David's dinnerparty were precious days to me.
My long interview with Miserrimus Dexter had disturbed
me far more seriously than I suspected at the time. It was
not until some hours after I had left him that I really began
to feel how my nerves had been tried by all that I had seen
and heard during my visit at his house. I started at the
slightest noises; I dreamed of dreadful things; I was ready
to cry without reason at one moment, and to fly into a passion without reason at another. Absolute rest was what I
wanted, and (thanks to my good Benjamin) was what I got.
The dear old man controlled his anxieties on my account,
and spared me the questions which his fatherly interest in



THE LAW AND THE LADY.              231
my welfare made him eager to ask. It was tacitly understood
between us that all conversation on the subject of my visit
to Miserrimus Dexter (of which, it is needless to say, he
strongly disapproved) should be deferred until repose had
restored my energies of body and mind. I saw no visitors.
Mrs. Macallan came to the cottage, and Major Fitz-David
came to the cottage-one of them to hear what had passed
between Miserrimus Dexter and,myself, the other to amuse
me with the latest gossip about the guests at the forthcoming dinner. Benjamin took it on himself to make my apologies, and to spare me the exertion of receiving my visitors.
We hired a little open carriage, and took long drives in the
pretty country lanes still left flourishing within a few miles
of the northern suburb of London. At home we sat and
talked quietly of old times, or played at backgammon and
dominoes-and so, for a few happy days, led the peaceful
unadventurous life which was good for me. When the day
of the dinner arrived, I felt restored to my customary health.
I was ready again, and eager again, for the introduction to
Lady Clarinda and the discovery of Mrs. Beauly.
Benjamin looked a little sadly at my flushed face as we
drove to Major Fitz-David's house.
"Ah, my dear," he said, in his simple way, "I see you are
well again! You have had enough of our quiet life already."
My recollection of events and persons, in general, at the
dinner-party, is singularly indistinct. I remember that we
were very merry, and as easy and familiar with one another
as if we had been old friends. I remember that Madame
Mirliflore was unapproachably superior to the other women
present, in the perfect beauty of her dress, and in the ample
justice which she did to the luxurious dinner set before us.
I remember the Major's young prima donna, more roundeyed, more overdressed, more shrill and strident as the coming "Queen of Song," than ever. I remember the Major
himself, always kissing our hands, always luring us to indulge in dainty dishes and drinks, always making love, always detecting resemblances between us, always "under the
charm," and never once out of his character as elderly Don
Juan from the beginning of the evening to the end. I remember dear old Benjamin, completely bewildered, shrinking
into corners, blushing when he was personally drawn into the
conversation, frightened at Madame Mirliflore, bashful with



232            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
Lady Clarinda, submissive to the Major, suffering under the
music, and from the bottom of his honest old heart wishing
himself home again. And there, as to the members of that
cheerful little gathering, my memory finds its limits-with
one exception. The appearance of Lady Clarinda is as present to me as if I had met her yesterday; and of the memorable conversation which we two held together privately,
toward the close of the evening, it is no exaggeration to say
that I can still call to mind almost every word.
I see her dress, I hear her voice again, while I write.
She was attired, I remember, with that extreme assumption
of simplicity which always defeats its own end by irresistibly suggesting art. She wore plain white muslin, over white
silk, without trimming or ornament of any kind. Her rich
brown hair, dressed in defiance of the prevailing fashion, was
thrown back from her forehead, and gathered into a simple
knot behind-without adornment of any sort. A little white
ribbon encircled her neck, fastened by the only article of jewelry that she wore-a tiny diamond brooch. She was unquestionably handsome; but her beauty was of the somewhat hard and angular type which is so often seen in English
women of her race: the nose and chin too prominent and too
firmly shaped; the well-opened gray eyes full of spirit and
dignity, but wanting in tenderness and mobility of expression. Her manner had all the charm which fine breeding
can confer-exquisitely polite, easily cordial; showing that
perfect yet unobtrusive confidence in herself which (in England) seems to be the natural outgrowth of pre-eminent social rank. If you had accepted her for what she was, on the
surface, you would have said, Here is the model of a noble
woman who is perfectly free from pride. And if you had
taken a liberty with her, on the strength of that conviction,
she would have made you remember it to the end of your life.
We got on together admirably. I was introduced as
"Mrs. Woodville," by previous arrangement with the Major
-effected through Benjamin. Before the dinner was over
we had promised to exchange visits. Nothing but the opportunity was wanting to lead Lady Clarinda into talking,
as I wanted her to talk, of Mrs. Beauly.
Late in the evening the opportunity came.
I had taken refuge from the terrible bravura singing of
the Major's strident prima donna in the back drawing-room.



THE LAW AND THE LADY.              233
As I had hoped and anticipated, after a while Lady Clarinda
(missing me from the group around the piano) came in search
of me. She seated herself by my side, out of sight and out
of hearing of our friends in the front room; and, to my infinite relief and delight, touched on the subject of Miserrimus
Dexter of her own accord. Something I had said of him,
when his name had been accidentally mentioned at dinner,
remained in her memory, and led us, by perfectly natural gradations, into speaking of Mrs. Beauly. "' At last," I
thought to myself; " the Major's little dinner will bring me
my reward!"
And what a reward it was, when it came! My heart sinks
in me again-as it sank on that never-to-be-forgotten evening —while I sit at my desk thinking of it.
"So Dexter really spoke to you of Mrs. Beauly!" exclaimed Lady Clarinda. "You have no idea how you surprise me."
"May I ask why?"
"He hates her! The last time I saw him he wouldn't allow me to mention her name. It is one of his innumerable
oddities. If any such feeling as sympathy is a possible feel.
ing in such a nature as his, he ought to like Helena Beauly.
She is the most completely unconventional person I know.
When she does break out, poor dear, she says things and
does things which are almost reckless enough to be worthy
of Dexter himself. I wonder whether you would like her?"
"You have kindly asked me to visit you, Lady Clarinda.
Perhaps I may meet her at your house?"
"I hope you will not wait until that is likely to happen,"
she said. "Helena's last whim is to fancy that she has got
-the gout, of all the maladies in the world! She is away
at some wonderful baths in Hungary or Bohemia (I don't
remember which)-and where she will go, or what she will
do next, it is perfectly impossible to say.-Dear Mrs. Woodville! is the heat of the fire too much for you?  You are
looking quite pale."
I felt that I was looking pale.  The discovery of Mrs.
Beauly's absence from England was a shock for which I was
quite unprepared. For a moment it unnerved me.
"Shall we go into the other room?" asked Lady Clarinda.
To go into the other room would be to drop the conversaL



234            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
tion. I was determined not to let that cataslophe happen.
It was just possible that Mrs. Beauly's maid might have
quitted her service, or might have been left behitid in England. My information would not be complete until I knew
what had become of the maid. I pushed my chair back a
little front the fire-place, and took a hand-screen from a table
near me; it might be made useful in hiding my face, if any
more disappointments were in store for me.
"Thank you, Lady Clarinda; I was only a little too near
the fire. I shall do admirably here. You surprise me about
Mrs. Beauly. From what Mr. Dexter said to me, I had imagined-"
"Oh, you must not believe any thing Dexter tells you!"
interposed Lady Clarinda. "He delights in mystifying people; and he purposely misled you, I have no doubt. If all
that I hear is true, he ought to know more of Helena Beauly's strange freaks and fancies than most people. He all but
discovered her in one of her adventures (down in Scotland),
which reminds me of the story in Auber's charming operawhat is it called? I shall forget my own name next! I
mean the opera in which the two nuns slip out of the convent, and go to the ball. Listen! How very odd! That vulgar girl is singing the castanet song in the second act at this
moment. Major! what opera is the young lady singing firom?"
The Major was scandalized at this interruption. He bustled into the back room-whispered," Hush! hush! my dear
lady; the Domino Noir " —and bustled back again to the
piano.
"Of course!" said Lady Clarinda. "How stupid of me!
The Domino Noir. And how strange that you should forget
it too!"
I had remembered it perfectly; but I could not timst myself to speak. If, as I believed, the " adventure" mentioned
by Lady Clarinda was connected, in some way, with Mrs.
Beauly's mysterious proceedings on the morning of the twenty-first of October, I was on the brink of the very discovery
which it was the one interest of my life to make! I held
the screen so as to hide my face; and I said in the steadiest
voice that I could command at the moment,
"Pray go on!-pray tell me what the adventure was!"
Lady. Clarinda was quite flattered by my eager desire to
hear the coming narrative.



THE LAW AND THE LADY.              235
" I hope my story will be worthy of the interest which you
are so good as to feel in it," she said.. " If you only knew
Helena-it is so like her! I have it, you must know, fiom
her maid. She has taken a woman who speaks foreign languages with her to Hungary, and she has left the maid with me.
A perfect treasure! I should be only too glad if I could keep
her in my service: she has but one defect, a name I hatePhoebe. Well! Phoebe and her mistress were staying at a
place near Edinburgh, called (I think) Gleninch. The house
belonged to that Mr. Macallan who was afterward tried —
you remember it, of course? —for poisoning his wife.  A
dreadful case; but don't be alarmed-my story has nothing
to do with it; my story has to do with Helena Beauly. One
evening (while she was staying at Gleninch) she was engaged to dine with some English friends visiting Edinburgh.
The same night —also in Edinburgh —there was a masked
ball, given by somebody whose name I forget. The ball (almost an unparalleled event in Scotland!) was reported to be
not at all a reputable affair. All sorts of amusing people
were to be there. Ladies of doubtful virtue, you know,
and gentlemen on the outlying limits of society, and so on.
Helena's friends had contrived to get cards, and were going, in spite of the objections-in the strictest incognito, of
course, trusting to their masks. And Helena herself was
bent on going with them, if she could only manage it without being discovered at Gleninch. Mr. Macallan was one of
the strait-laced people who disapproved of the ball. No lady,
he said, could show herself at such an entertainment without
conmpromising her reputation. What staff! Well, Helena,
in one of her wildest moments, hit on a way of going to the
ball without discovery which was really as ingenious as a
plot in a French play. She went to the dinner in the carriage fiom Gleninch, having sent Phoebe to Edinburgh before her. It was not a grand dinner-a little friendly gathering: no evening dress. When the time came for going
back to Gleninch, what do you think Helena did?  She sent
her maid back in the carriage, instead of herself! Phoebe
was dressed in her mistress's cloak and bonnet and veil. She
was instructed to run up-stairs the moment she got to the
house, leaving on the hall table a little note of apology
(written by Helena, of course!), pleading fatigue as an excuse
for not saying good-night to her host. The mistress and the



236            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
maid were about the same height; and the servants naturally never discovered the trick. Phoebe got up to her mistress's room safely enough. There, her instructions were to
wait until the house was quiet for the night, and then to
steal up to her own room. While she was waiting, the girl
fell asleep. She only awoke at two in the morning, or later.
It didn't much matter, as she thought. She stole out on
tiptoe, and closed the door behind her. Before she was at
the end of the corridor, she fancied she heard something.
She waited until she was safe on the upper story, and then
she looked over the banisters. There was Dexter —so like
him! — hopping about on his hands (did you ever see it?
the most grotesquely horrible exhibition you can imagine!)
-there was Dexter, hopping about, and looking through keyholes, evidently in search of the person who had left her
room at two in the morning; and no doubt taking Phoebe
for her mistress, seeing that she had forgotten to take her
mistress's qloak off her shoulders. The next morning, early,
Helena came back in a hired carriage from Edinburgh, with
a hat and mantle borrowed fromn her English friends. She
left the carriage in the road, and got into the house by way of
the garden-without being discovered, this time, by Dexter
or by any body. Clever and daring, wasn't it? And, as I
said just now, quite a new version of the lDomino Noir.
You will wonder, as I did, how it was that Dexter didn't
make mischief in the morning? He would have done it no
doubt. But even he was silenced (as Phoebe told me) by
the dreadful event that happened in the house on the same
day.-My dear Mrs. Woodville! the heat of this room is certainly too much for you, take my smelling-bottle. Let me
open the window."
I was just able to answer, "Pray say nothing! Let me
slip out into the open air I"
I made my way unobserved to the landing, and sat down
on the stairs to compose myself where nobody could see me.
In a moment more I felt a hand laid gently on my shoulder, and discovered good Benjamin looking at me in dismay.
Lady Clarinda had considerately spoken to him, and had assisted him in quietly making  his retreat from the room, while
his host's attention was still absorbed by the music.
"My dear child!" he whispered, " what is the matter?"
"Take me home, and I will tell you," was all that I could say.



THE LAW AND THE LADY.              237
CHAPTER  XXXII.
A SPECIMEN OF MY WISDOM.
THE scene must follow my erratic movements-the scene
must close on London for a while, and open in Edinburgh.
Two days had passed since Major Fitz-David's dinnerparty. I was - able to breathe again freely, after the utter
destruction of all my plans for the future, and of all the hopes
that I had founded on them. I could now see that I had
been trebly in the wrong-wrong in hastily and cruelly suspecting an innocent woman; wrong in communicating my
suspicions (without an attempt to verity them previously) to
another person; wrong in accepting the flighty inferences
and conclusions of Miserrimus Dexter as if they had been
solid truths. I was so ashamed of my folly, when I thought
of the past-so completely discouraged, so rudely shaken in
my confidence in myself, when I thought of the future, that,
for once in a way, I accepted sensible advice when it was offered to me. " My dear," said good old Benjamin, after we
had thoroughly talked over my discomfiture on our return
from the dinner-party, "judging by what you tell me of him,
I don't fancy Mr. Dexter  Promise me that you will not go
back to him until you have first consulted some person who
is fitter to guide you through this dangerous business than I
am."
I gave him my promise, on one condition. "If I fail to
find the person," I said, "will you undertake to help me?"
Benjamin pledged himself to help me, cheerfully.
The next morning, when I was brushing my hair, and
thinking over my affairs, I called to mind a forgotten resolution of mine at the time when I first read the Report of
my husband's Trial. I mean the resolution-if Miserrimus
Dexter failed me-to apply to one of the two agents (or solicitors, as we should term them) who had prepared Eustace's
defense-namely, Mr. Playmore. This gentleman, it may be
remembered, had especially recommended himself to my confidence by his fiiendly interference when the sheriff's officers were in search of my husband's papers. Referring back



240            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
simply delightful to feel. But on the seventh day these
same men will hear one of their ministers seriously tell them
that he views taking a walk on the Sabbath in the light of
an act of profanity, and will be the only people in existence
who can let a man talk downright nonsense without laughing at him.
I am not clever enough to be able to account for this
anomaly in the national character; I can only notice it by
way of necessary preparation for the appearance in my little
narrative of a personage not frequently seen in writing-a
cheerful Scotchman.
In all other respects I found Mr. Playmore only negatively remarkable. He was neither old nor young, neither handsome nor ugly; he was personally not in the least like the
popular idea of a lawyer; and he spoke perfectly good English, touched with only the slightest possible flavor of a
Scotch accent.
"I have the honor to be an old firiend of Mr. Macallan," he
said, cordially shaking hands with me; "and I am honestly happy to become acquainted with Mr. Macallan's wife.
Where will you sit? Near the light? You are young enough
not to be afraid of the daylight just yet. Is this your first
visit to Edinburgh? Pray let me make it as pleasant to you
as I can. I shall be delighted to present Mrs. Playmore to
you. We are staying in Edinburgh for a little while. The
Italian opera is here, and we have a box for to-night. Will
you kindly waive all ceremony, and dine with us and go to
the music afterward?"
"You are very kind," I answered. "But I have some anxieties just now which will make me a very poor companion
for Mrs. Playmore at the opera. My letter to you mentions,
I think, that I have to ask your advice on matters which are
of very serious importance to me."
"Does it?" he rejoined. "To tell you the truth, I have
not read the letter through. I saw your name in it, and I
gathered from your message that you wished to see me
here. I sent my note to your hotel-and then went on
with something else. Pray pardon me. Is this a professional consultation? For your own sake, I sincerely hope
not!"
" It is hardly a professional consultation, Mr. Playmore. I
find myself in a very painful position; and I come to you to



THE LAW AND THE LADY.               241
advise me, under very unusual circumstances. I shall surprise you very much when you hear.what I have to say;
and I am afraid I shall occupy more than my fair share of
your time."
"I and my time are entirely at your disposal," he said.
"Tell me what I can do for you-and tell it in your -own
way."
The kindness of this language was more than matched by
the kindness of his manner. I spoke to him freely and fully
-I told him my strange story without the slightest reserve.
He showed the varying impressions that I produced on
his mind without the slightest concealment. MIy separation
fiom Eustace distressed him. My resolution to dispute the
Scotch Verdict, and my unjust suspicions of Mrs. Beauly,
first amused., then surprised him. It was not, however, until I had described my extraordinary interview with Miserrimus Dexter, and my hardly less remarkable conversation
with Lady Clarinda, that I produced my greatest effect on
the lawyer's mind. I saw him change color for the first
time. He started, and muttered to himself, as if he had completely forgotten me. "Good God!" I heard him say-" can
it be possible? Does the truth lie that way after all?"
I took thb liberty of interrupting him. I had no idea of
allowing him to keep his thoughts to himself.
"I seem to have surprised you?" I said.
He started at the sound of my voice.
"I beg ten thousand pardons!" he exclaimed. "You
have not only surprised me-you have opened an entirely
new view to my mind. I see a possibility, a really startling
possibility, in connection with the poisoning' at Gleninch,
which never. occurred to me until the present moment. This
is a nice state of things," he added, falling back again into
his ordinary humor. "Here is the client leading the lawyer. My dear Mrs. Eustace, which is it-do you want my
advice? or do I want yours?"
" Mlay I hear the new idea?" I asked.
"Not just yet, if you will excuse me," he answered.
"Make allowances for my professional caution. I don't
want to be professional with You —my great anxiety is to
avoid it. But the lawyer gets the better of the man, and
refuses to be suppressed. I really hesitate to realize what
is passing in my own mind without some further inquiry.
L2



"HE DIPPED HIS PEN IN THE INK, AND PLACED A CHAIR FOR ME CLOSE AT HIS SIDE."






THE LAW AND THE LADY.              243
I repeated what I have already written in these pages.
The pen went back to the paper again, and added these
lines:
"He hears nothing more remarkable than that a person
visiting him, who is interested in the case, refuses to accept
the verdict at the Macallan Trial as a final verdict, and proposes to reopen the inquiry. What does he do upon that?
"He exhibits all the symptoms of a panic of terror; he
sees himself in some incomprehensible danger; he is firantic
at one moment and servile at the next; he must and will
know what this disturbing person really means. And when
he is informed on that point, he first turns pale and doubts
the evidence of his own senses; and next, with nothing said
to justify it, gratuitously accuses his visitor of suspecting
somebody. Query here: When a small sum of money is
missing in a household, and the servants in general are called
together to be informed of the circumstance, what do we
think of the one servant in particular who speaks first, and
who says,' Do you suspect me?"'
He laid down the pen again.
"Is that right?" he asked.
I began to see the end to which the notes were drifting. Instead of answering his question, I entreated him to
enter into the explanations that were still wanting to convince my own mind. He held up a warning forefinger, and
stopped me.
" Not yet," he said. "Once again, am I right-so far?"
" Quite right."
"Very well. Now tell me what happened next. Don't
mind repeating yourself. Give me all the details, one after
another, to the end."
I mentioned all the details exactly as I remembered them.
Mr. Playmore returned to his writing for the third and last
time. Thus the notes enided:
" He is indirectly assured that he, at least is not the person
suspected. He sinks back in his chair; he draws a long
breath; he asks to be left a while by himself, under the pretense that the subject excites him. When the visitor returns, Dexter has been drinking in the interval. The visitor
resumes the subject-not Dexter. The visitor is convinced
that Mrs. Eustace Macallan died by the hand, of a poisoner,.and openly says so. Dexter sinks back in his chair like a



244            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
man fainting. What is the horror that has got possession
of him? It is easy to understand if we call it guilty horror;
it is beyond all understanding if we call it any thing else.
And houw does it leave him? He flies from one extreme to
another; he is indescribably delighted when he discovers
that the visitor's suspicions are all fixed on an absent person. And then, and then only, he takes refuge in the declaration that he has been of one mind with his visitor, in the
matter of suspicion, from the first. These are facts. To
what plain conclusion do they point?"
He shut up his notes, and, steadily watching my face,
waited for me to speak first.
" I understand you, Mr. Playmore," I began, impetuously.
"You believe that Mr. Dexter-"
His warning forefinger stopped me there.
"Tell me," he interposed, " what Dexter said to you when
he was so good as to confirm your opinion of poor Mrs.
Beauly."
"He said,'There isn't a doubt about it. Mrs. Beauly
poisoned her.'"
"I can't do better than follow so good an example-with
one trifling difference. I say too, There isn't a doubt about
it. Dexter poisoned her."
"Are you joking, Mr. Playmore?"
" I never was more in earnest in my life. Your rash visit
to Dexter, and your extraordinary imprudence in taking him
into your confidence, have led to astonishing results. The
light which the whole machinery of the Law was unable to
throw on the poisoning case at Gleninch has been accidentally let in on it by a Lady who refuses to listen to reason
and who insists on having her own way.' Quite incredible,
and nevertheless quite true."
"Impossible!" I exclaimed.
"' What is impossible?" he asked, coolly.
" That Dexter poisoned my husband's first wife."
" And why is that impossible, if you please?"
I began to be almost enraged with Mr. Playmore.
"Can you ask the question?" I replied, indignantly. "I
have told you that I heard him speak of her in terms of respect and affection of which any woman might be proud.
He lives in the memory of her. I owe his fiiendly reception
of me to some resemblance which he fancies he sees between



THE LAW AND THE LADY.               245
my figure and hers. I have seen tears in his eyes, I have
heard his voice falter and fail him, when he spoke of her.
He may be the falsest of men in all besides, but he is true
to her-he has not misled me in that one thing. There are
signs that never deceive a woman when a man is talking to
her of what is really near his heart: I saw those signs. It
is as true that I poisoned her as that he did. I am ashamed
to set my opinion against yours, Mr. Playmore; but I really
can not help it. I declare I am almost angry with you."
He seemed to be pleased, instead of offended, by the bold
manner in which I expressed nmyself.
"My dear Mrs. Eustace, you have no reason to be angry
with me. In one respect, I entirely share your view-with
this difference, that I go a little farther than you do."
"I don't understand you."
" You will understand me directly. You describe Dexter's
feeling fbr the late Mrs. Eustace as a happy mixture of respect and affection. I can tell you it was a much warmer
feeling toward her than that. I have my information from
the poor lady herself-who honored me with her confidence
and fiiendship for the best part of her life. Before she married Mr.Macallan-she kept it a secret fiom him, and you
had better keep it a secret too-Miserrinius Dexter was in
love with her. Miserrilnus Dexter asked her-deformed as
he was, seriously asked her-to be his wife."
"And in the face of that," I cried," you say that he poisoned her!"
"I do. I see no other conclusion possible, after what happened during your visit to him. You all but fiightened
him into a fainting fit. What was he afraid of?"
I tried hard to find an answer to that. I even embarked
on an answer without quite knowing where my own words
might lead me.
"Mr. Dexter is an old and true friend of my husband," I
began. "When he heard me say I was not satisfied with
the Verdict, he might have felt alarmed —"
"He might have felt alarmed at the possible consequences
to your husband of reopening the inquiry," said Mr. Playmore, ironically finishing the sentence for me. "Rather farfetched, Mrs. Eustace; and not very consistent with your
faith in your husband's innocence. Clear your mind of one
mistake," he continued, seriously, " which may fatally mislead



246            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
you if you persist in pursuing your present course. Miserrimus Dexter, you may take my word for it, ceased to be
your husband's friend on the day when your husband married his first wife. Dexter has kept up appearances, I grant
you, both in public and in private. His evidence in his
friend's favor at the Trial was given with the deep feeling
which every body expected firom him. Nevertheless, I firmly
believe, looking under the surface, that Mr. Macallan has no
bitterer enemy living than Miserrimus Dexter."
He turned me cold. I felt that here, at least, he was right.
My husband had wooed and won the woman who had refused Dexter's offer of marriage. Was Dexter the man to
forgive that?  Mlly own experience answered me, and said,
No.
" Bear in mind what I have told you," Mr. Playmore proceeded. "And now let us get on to your own position in
this matter, and to the interests that you have at stake.
Try to adopt my point of view for the moment; and let us
inquire what chance we have of making any farther advance
toward a discovery of the truth. It is one thing to be morally convinced (as I am) that Miserrimus Dexter is the man
who ought to have been tried for the murder at Gleninch;
and it is another thing, at this distance of time, to lay our
hands on the plain evidence which can alone justify any thing
like a public assertion of his guilt. There, as I see it, is the
insuperable difficulty in the case. Unless I am completely
mistaken, the question is now narrowed to this plain issue:
The public assertion of your husband's innocence depends
entirely on the public assertion of Dexter's guilt. How are
you to arrive at that result? There is not a particle of evidence against him. You can only convict Dexter on Dexter's own confession. Are you listening to me?"
I was listening, most unwillingly. If he were right, things
had indeed come to that terrible pass. But I could notwith all my respect for his superior knowledge and experience-I could not persuade myself that he was right. And
I owned it, with the humility which I really felt.
He smiled good-humoredly.
"At any rate," he said, "you will admit that Dexter hats
not fireely opened his mind to you thus far? He is still
keeping something from your knowledge which you are interested in.discovering?"



248            THE LAW' AND THE LADY.
I read these words:
"Summing up the results of my observation, I may give it
as my opinion that there is undoubtedly latent insanity in this
case, but that no active symptoms of madness have presented themselves as yet. You may, I think, produce him at the
Trial, without fear of consequences. He may say and do all
sorts of odd things; but he has his mind under the control
of his will, and you may trust his self-esteem to exhibit him
in the character of a substantially intelligent witness.
"As to the future, I am, of course, not able to speak positively. I can only state my views.
" That he will end in madness (if he live), I entertain little
or no doubt. The question of when the madness will show
itself depends entirely on the state of his health. His nervous system is highly sensitive, and there are signs that his
way of life has already damaged it. If he conquer the bad
habits to which I have alluded in an earlier part of my report, and if he pass many hours of every day quietly in the
open air, he may last as a sane man for years to come. If
he persist in his present way of life —or, in other words, if
further mischief occur to that sensitive nervous system-his
lapse into insanity must infallibly take place when the misclief has reached its culminating point.  Without warning
to himself or to others, the whole mental structure will give
way; and, at a moment's notice, while he is acting as quietly
or speaking as intelligently as at his best time, the man will
drop (if I may use the expression) into madness ox idiocy.
In either case, when the catastrophe has happened, it is only
due to his fiiends to add that they can (as I believe) entertain no hope of his cure. The balance once lost, will be lost
fbr life."
There it ended. Mr. Playmore put the letter back in his
drawer.
"You have just read the opinion of one of our highest living authorities," he said. "Does Dexter strike you as a likely man to give his nervous'system a chance of recovery?
Do you see no obstacles and no perils in your way?"
My silence answered him.
"Suppose you go back to Dexter," he proceeded. "And
suppose that the doctor's opinion exagggerates the peril in
his case. What are you to do? The last time you saw him,
you had the immense advantage of taking him by surprise.



THE LAW AND THE LADY.               249
Those sensitive nerves of his gave way, and he betrayed the
fear that you aroused in him. Can you take him by surprise
again?  Not you! He is prepared for you now; and he
will be on his guard. If you encounter nothing worse, you
will have his cunning to deal with next. Are you his match
at that?  But for Lady Clarinda he would have hopelessly
misled you on the subject of Mirs. Beauly."
There was no answering this, either. I was foolish enough
to try to answer it, for all that.
"He told me the truth so far as he knew it," I rejoined.
"He really saw what he said he saw in the corridor at
Gleninch."
" He told you the truth," returned Mr. Playmore, " because
he was cunning enough to see that the truth would help ]tim
in irritating your suspicions. You don't really believe that
lie shared your suspicions?"
"Why not?" I said. "He was as ignorant of what Mrs.
Beauly was really doing on that night as I was-until I met
Lady Clarinda. It remains to be seen whether he will not
be as much astonished as I was when I tell him what Lady
Clarinda told me."
This smart reply produced an effect which I had not anticipated.
To my surprise, Mr. Playmore abruptly dropped all further
discussion on his side. He appeared to despair of convincing
me, and he owned it indirectly in his next words.
"Will nothing that I can say to you," he asked, " induce
you to think as I think in this matter?"
"I have not your ability or your experience," I answered.
"I am sorry to say I can't think as you think."
"And you are really determined to see Miserlimus Dexter
again?"
"I have engaged myself to see him again."
He waited a little, and thought over it.
"You have honored me by asking for my advice," he said.
"I earnestly advise you, Mrs. Eustace, to break your engagrement. I go even further than that-I entreat you not to see
Dexter acain."
Just what my mother-in-law had said! just what Benjamin
and Major Fitz-David had said! They were all against me.
And still I held out. I wonder, when I look back at it, at my
own obstinacy. I am almost ashamed to relate that I made



250            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
Mr. Playmore no reply. He waited, still looking at me. I
felt irritated by that fixed look. I arose, and stood before
him with my eyes on the floor.
He arose in his turn. He understood that the conference
was over.
"Well, well," he said, with a kind of sad good-humor, "I
suppose it is unreasonable of me to expect that a young
woman like you should share any opinion with an old lawyer
like me. Let me only remind you that our conversation
must remain strictly confidential for the present; and then
let us change the subject. Is there any thing that I can do
for you? Are you alone in Edinburgh?"
" No. I am traveling with an old fiiend of mine, who has
known me fiom childhood."
"And do you stay here to-morrow?"
"I think so."
"Will you do me one favor? Will you think over what
has passed between us, and will you come back to me in the
morning?"
"Willingly, Mr. Playmore, if it is only to thank you again
for your kindness."
On that understanding we parted. He sighed-the cheerful man sighed, as he opened the door for me. Women are
contradictory creatures. That sigh affected me more than
all his arguments. I felt myself blush for my own' headstrong resistance to him as I took my leave and turned away
into the street.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
GLENINCH.
"AHA!" said Benjamin, complacently.  "So the lawyer
thinks, as I do, that you will be highly imprudent if you go
back to Mr. Dexter? A hard-headed, sensible man the lawyer, no doubt. You will listen to Mr. Playmore, won't you,
though you wouldn't listen to me?"
(I had of course respected MIr.-Playmore's confidence in
me when Benjamin and I met on my return to the hotel.
Not a word relating to the lawyer's horrible suspicion of
Miserrimus Dexter had passed my lips.)



THE LAW AND THE LADY.             251
" You must forgive me, my old friend," I said, answering
Benjamin. "I am afraid it has come to this-try as I may,
I can listen to nobody who advises me. On our way here I
honestly meant to be guided by Mr. Playmore-we should
never have taken this long journey if I had not honestly
meant it. I have tried, tried hard to be a teachable, reasonable woman. But there is something in me that won't be
taught. I am afraid I shall go back to Dexter."
Even Benjamin lost all patience with me this time.
"What is bred in the bone," he said, quoting the old proverb, "will never come out of the flesh. In years gone by,
you were the most obstinate child that ever made a mess in
a nursery. Oh, dear me, we might as well have stayed in
London."
"No," I replied, "now we have traveled to Edinburgh,
we will see something (interesting to me at any rate) which
we should never have seen if we had not left London. My
husband's country-house is within a few miles of us here.
To-morrow we will go to Gleninch."
"Where the poor lady was poisoned?" asked Benjamin,
with a look of dismay. " You mean that place?"
"Yes. I want to see the room in which she died; I want
to go all over the house."
Benjamin crossed his hands resignedly on his lap. "I try
to understand the new generation," said the old man, sadly;
"but I can't manage it. The new generation beats me."
I sat down to write to Mr. Playmore about the visit to
Gleninch. The house in which the tragedy had occurred
that had blighted my husband's life was, to my mind, the
most interesting house on the habitable globe. The prospect
of visiting Gleninch had, indeed (to tell the truth), strongly
influenced my resolution to consult the Edinburgh lawyer.
I sent my note to Mr. Playmore by a messenger, and received
the kindest reply in return. If I would wait until the afternoon, he would get the day's business done, and would take
us to Gleninch in his own carriage.
Benjamin's obstinacy-in its own quiet way, and on certain occasions only-was quite a match for mine. He had
privately determined, as one of the old generation, to have
nothing to do with Gleninch. Not a word on the subject
escaped him until Mr. Playmore's carriage was at the hotel
door. At that appropriate moment Benjamin remembered






II            ~~If                        H ~
II
3~~~~~~~~~~C3
"I STOPPED, AND LOOKED AT THE DUST AND ASHES, AT THE BROKEN CROCKERY
AND THE OLD IRON."



THE LAW AND THE LADY.              253
hopped, in his horrible way, following the footsteps of the
servant disguised in her mistress's clothes.  Go where I
might, the ghosts of the dead and the absent were with me,
step by step. Go where I might, the lonely horror of the
house had its still and awful voice for Me: "Ikeep the secret of the Poison! Ihide the mystery of the death!"
The oppression of the place became unendurable. I longed
for the pure sky and the fiee air. oMy companion noticed
and understood me.
"Come," he said. "We have had enough of the house.
Let us look at the grounds."
In the gray quiet of the evening we roamed about the
lonely gardens, and threaded our way through the rank, neglected shrubberies.  Wandering here and wandering there,
we drifted into the kitchen garden-with one little patch still
sparely cultivated by the old man and his wife, and all the
rest a wilderness of weeds. Beyond the far end of the garden, divided fiom it by a low paling of wood, there stretched
a patch of waste ground, sheltered on three sides by trees.
In one lost corner of the ground an object, common enough
elsewhere, attracted my attention here.  The object was a
dust-heap. The great size of it, and the curious situation in
which it was placed, aroused a moment's languid curiosity in
me. I stopped, and looked at the dust and ashes, at the
broken crockery and the. old- iron.  Here there was a torn
hat, and there some fiagments of rotten old boots, and
scattered around a small attendant litter of torn paper and
fiowzy rags.
" What are you looking at?" asked Mr. Playmore.
"At nothing more remarkable than the dust-heap," I answered.
" In tidy England, I suppose, you would have all that carted away out of sight," said the lawyer. "We don't mind in
Scotland, as long as the dust-heap is far enough away not to
be smelt at the house. Besides, some of it, sifted, comes in
usefully as manure for the garden. Here the place is deserted, and the rubbish in consequence has not been disturbed. Every thing at Gleninch, Mrs. Eustace (the big
dust-heap included), is waiting for the new mistress to set it
to rights. One of these days you may be queen here-who
knows?"
"I shall never see this place again," I said.



THE LAW AND THE LADY.              255
business is to make a fuss about trifles. Let me only say-go
with a companion when you next visit Dexter; and be on your
guard against yourself when your talk turns on Mrs. Beauly."
"On my guard against myself? What do you mean?"
"Practice, my dear Mrs. Eustace, has given me an eye for
the little weaknesses of human nature. You are (quite naturally) disposed to be jealous of Mrs. Beauly; and you are,
in consequence, not in full possession of your excellent common-sense when Dexter uses that lady as a means of blindfolding you. Am I speaking too fieely?"
"Certainly not. It is very degrading to me to be jealous
of Mrs. Beauly. MIy vanity suffers dreadfully when I think
of it. But my common-sense yields to conviction. I dare
say you are right."
"I am delighted to find that we agree on one point," he
rejoined, drily. "I don't despair yet of convincing you in
that far more serious matter which is still in dispute between
lus. And, what is more, if you will throw no obstacles in the
way, I look to Dexter himself to help me."
This aroused my cutiosity. How Mliserrimus Dexter could
help him, in that or in any other way, was a riddle beyond
my reading.
" You propose to repeat to Dexter all that Lady Clarinda
told you about 1Ms. Beauly," he went on. "And you think
it is likely that Dexter will be overwhelmed, as you were
overwhelmed, when he hears the story. I am going to venture on a prophecy. I say that Dexter will disappoint you.
Far from showing any astonishment, he will boldly tell you
that you have been duped by a deliberately false statement
of facts, invented and set afloat, in her own guilty interests,
by Mrs. Beauly. Now tell me-if he really try, in that way,
to renew your unfounded suspicion of an innocent woman,
will that shake your confidence in your own opinion?"
"It will entirely destroy my confidence in my own opinion, Mr. Playmore."
"Very good. I shall expect you to write to me, in any
case; and I believe we shall be of one mind before the week
is out. Keep strictly secret all that I said to you yesterday
about Dexter. Don't even mentiorrmy name when' you see
him. Thinking of him as I think now, I would as soon touch
the hand of the hangman as the hand of that monster! God
bless you! Good-by."



2565           TIlE LAW AND THE LADY.
So he said his farewell words, at the door of the hotel.
Kind, genial, clever —but oh, how easily prejudiced, how
shockingly obstinate in holding to his own opinion! And
what an opinion! I shuddered as I thought of it.
CHAPTER XXXV.
MR. PLAYMORE'S PROPHECY.
WE reached London between eight and nine in the evening. Strictly methodical in all his habits, Benijamin had telegraphed to his housekeeper, fiom Edinburgh, to have supper ready for us by ten o'clock, and to send the cabman whom
he always employed to meet us at the station.
Arriving at the villa, we were obliged to wait for a moment to let a pony-chaise get by us before we could draw up
at Benjamin's door. The chaise passed very slowly, driven
by a rough-looking man, with a pipe in his mouth. But for
the man, I might have doubted whether the pony was quite
a stranger to me. As things were, I thought no more of the
matter.
Benjamin's respectable old housekeeper opened the gardlen gate, and startled me by bursting into a devout ejaculation of gratitude at the sight of her master. "The Lord be
praised, sir!" she cried; "I thought you would never come
back!"
"Any thing wrong?" asked Benjamin, in his own impenetrably quiet way.
The'housekeeper trembled at the question, and answered
in these enigmatical words:
" My mind's upset, sir; and whether things are wrong or
whether things are right is more than I can say. Hours
ago, a strange man came in and asked"-she stopped, as if
she were completely bewildered-looked for a moment vacantly at her master-and suddenly addressed herself to me.
"And asked," she proceeded, " when you was expected back,
ma'anm. I told him what mv master had telegraphed, and
the man says up6n that,'Wait a bit,' he says;'I'm coming back.' He came back in a minute or less; and he carried a Thing in his arms which curdled my blood-it did!and set me shaking from the crown of my head to the sole



TIlE LAW AND THE LADY.              257
of my foot. I know I ought to have stopped it; but I
couldn't stand upon my legs, much less put the man out of
the house. In he went, without' with your leave,' or' by your
leave,' Mr. Benjamin, sir-in he went, with the Thing in his
arms, straight through to your library. And there It has
been all these hours. And there It is now. I've spoken to
the police; but they wouldn't interfere; and what to 4o
next is more than my poor head can tell. Don't you go in
by yourself, ma'am! You'll be frightened out of your wits
-you will!"
I persisted in entering the house, for all that. Aided by the
pony, I easily solved the mystery of the housekeeper's otherwise unintelligible narrative. Passing through the diningroom (where the supper-table was already laid for us), I
looked through the half-opened library door.
Yes, there was Miserrimus Dexter, arrayed in his pink
jacket, fast asleep in Benjamin's favorite arm-chair! No coverlet hid his horrible deformity. Nothing was sacrificed to
conventional ideas of propriety in his extraordinary dress.
I could hardly wonder that the poor old housekeeper trembled from head to foot when she spoke of him.
"Valeria," said Benjamin, pointing to the Portent in the
chair. " Which is it-an Indian idol, or a man?"
I have already described Miserrimus Dexter as possessing
the sensitive ear of a dog: he now showed that he also
slept the light sleep of a dog. Quietly as Benjamin had
spoken, the strange voice aroused him on the instant. He
rubbed his eyes, and smiled as innocently as a waking child.
"How do you do, Mrs.Valeria?" he said. "I have had a
nice little sleep. You don't know how happy I am to see
you again. Who is this?"
He rubbed his eyes once more, and looked at Benjamin.
Not knowing what else to do in this extraordinary emergency, I presented my visitor to the master of the house.
"Excuse my getting up, sir," said Mliserrimus Dexter. "I
can't get up-I have got no legs. You look as if you thought
I was occupying your chair? If I am committing an intrusion, be so good as to put your umbrella under me, and give
me a jerk. I shall fall on my hands, and I sha'n't be offended with you. I will submit to a tumble and a scolding-but
please don't break my heart by sending me away. That
beautiful woman there can be very cruel sometimes, sir,



258            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
when the fit takes her. She went away when I stood in the
sorest need of a little talk with her-she went away, and
left me to my loneliness and my suspense. I am a pool' deformed wretch, with a warm heart, and, perhaps, an insatiable curiosity as well. Insatiable curiosity (have you ever
felt it?) is a curse. I bore it until my brains began to boil
in my head; and then I sent for my gardener, and made him
drive me here. I like being here.; The air of your library
soothes me; the sight of Mrs. Valeria is balm to my wounded heart. She has something to tell me-something that I
am dying to hear. If she is not too tired after her journey,
and if you will let her tell it, I promise to have myself taken
away when she has done. Dear Mr. Benjamin, you look like
the refuge of the afflicted. I am afflicted. Shake hands like
a good Christian, and take me in."
He held out his hand. His soft blue eyes melted into an
expression of piteous entreaty. Completely stupefied by the
amazing harangue of which he had been made the object,
Benjamin took the offered hand, with the air of a man in a
dream. "I hope I see you well, sir," he said, mechanically
-and then looked around at me, to know what he was to do
next.
" I understand M1r. Dexter," I whispered. "Leave him to
me."
Benjamin stole a last bewildered look at the Object in the
chair; bowed to it, with the instinct of politeness which
never failed him; and (still smith the air of a man in a dream)
withdrew into the next room.
Left together, we looked at each other, for the first moment, in silence.
Whether I unconsciously drew on that inexhaustible store
of indulgence which a woman always keeps in reserve for a
man who owns that he has need of her, or whether, resenting as I did Mr. Playmore's horrible suspicion of him, my
heart was especially accessible to feelings of compassion in
his unhappy case, I can not tell. I only know that I pitied
Miserrimus Dexter at that moment as I had never pitied
him yet; and that I spared him the reproof which I should
certainly have administered to any other man who had
taken the liberty of establishing himself, uninvited, in Benjamin's house.
Hie was the first to speak.



260            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
in my victory. For once, I had really some reason to feel
satisfied with myself. I had taken the Christian and merciful side in my discussion with Mr'. Playmore; and I had won
my reward. I could sit in the same room with Miserrimus
Dexter, and feel the blessed conviction that I was not breathing the same air with a poisoner. Was it not worth the visit to Edinburgh to have made sure of that?
In repeating, at his own desire, what I had already said to
him, I took care to add the details which made Lady Clarinda's narrative coherent and credible. He listened throughout with breathless attention —here and there repeating the
words after me, to impress them the more surely and the
more deeply on his mind.
" What is to be said? what is to be done?" he asked,
with a look of blank despair. " I can't disbelieve it. From
first to last, strange as it is, it sounds true."
(How would Mr. Playmore have felt if he had heard those
words? I did him the justice to believe that he would have
felt heartily ashamed of himself.)
"There is nothing to be said," I rejoined, "except that
Mrs. Beauly is innocent, and that you and I have done her a
grievous wrong. Don't you agree with me?"
"I entirely agree with you," he answered, without an instant's hesitation. "M rs. Beauly is an innocent woman.
The defense at the Trial was the right defense after all."
He folded his arms complacently; he looked perfectly satisfied to leave the matter there.
I was not of his mind. To my own amazement, I now
found myself the least reasonable person of the two!
MIiserrimus Dexter (to use the popular phrase) had given
me more than I had bargained for. He had not only done
all that I had anticipated in the way of falsifying Mr. Playmore's prediction - he had actually advanced beyond my
limits. I could go the length of recognizing Mrs. Beauly's
innocence; but at that point I stopped. If the Defense at
the Trial were the right defense, farewell to all hope of asserting my husband's innocence. I held to that hope as I
held to my love and my life.
" Speak for yourself," I said. " My opinion of the Defense
remains unchanged."
He started, and knit his brows as if I had disappointed and
displeased him.



THE LAW AND THE LADY.             261
"Does that mean that you are determined to go on?"
"It does."
He was downright angry with me. He cast his customary
politeness to the winds.
"Absurd! impossible!" he cried, contemptuously. "You
have yourself declared that we wronged an innocent woman
when we suspected IMrs. Beauly. Is there any one else whom
we can suspect? It is ridiculous to ask the question. There
is no alternative left but to accept the facts as they are, and
to stir no farther in the matter of the poisoning at Gleninch.
It is childish to dispute plain conclusions. You must give
up."
"You may be angry with me if you will, Mr. Dexter.
Neither your anger nor your arguments will make me give
up."
He controlled himself by an effort-he was quiet and polite again when he next spoke to me.
"Very well. Pardon me for a moment if I absorb myself in my own thoughts. I want to do something which I
have not done yet."
"What may that be, Mr. Dexter?"
"I am going to put myself into Mrs. Beauly's skin, and to
think with Mrs. Beauly's mind. Give me a minute. Thank
you.))
What did lie mean? what new transformation of him was
passing before my eyes? Was there ever such a puzzle of a
man as this? Who that saw him now, intently pursuing his
new train of thought, would have recognized him as the
childish creature who had awoke so innocently, and had astonished Benjamin by the infantine nonsense which he talked?
It is said, and said truly, that there are many sides to every
human character.  Dexter's many sides were developing
themselves at such a rapid rate of progress that they were
already beyond my counting.
lie lifted his head, and fixed a look of keen inquiry on me.
"I have come out of Mrs. Beauly's skin," he announced.
"And I have arrived at this result: We are two impetuous
people; and we have been a little hasty in rushing at a conclusion."
He stopped. I said nothing. Was the shadow of a doubt
of him beginning to rise in my mind? I waited, and listened.
"I am as fully satisfied as ever of the truth of what Lady'M 2



262            THE LAWV AND THE LADY.
Clarinda told you," he proceeded. " But I see, on consideration, what I failed to see at the time. The story admits of
two interpretations-one on the surface, and another under
the surface. I look under the surface, in your interests; and
I say, it is just possible that Mrs. Beauly may have been cunning enough to forestall suspicion, and to set up an Alibi."
I am ashamed to own that I did not understand what he
meant by the last word —Alibi. He saw that I was not following him, and spoke out more plainly.
"Was the maid something more than her mistress's passive accomplice?" he said. "Was she the Hand that her
mistress used? Was she on her way to give the first dose
of poison when she passed me in the corridor?  Did Mrs.
Beauly spend the night in Edinburgh-so as to have her defense ready, if suspicion fell upon her?"
My shadowy doubt of him became substantial doubt when
I heard that. Had I absolved him a little too readily? Was
he really trying to renew my suspicions of Mrs. Beauly, as
Mr. Playmore had foretold? This time I was obliged to answer him. In doing so, I unconsciously employed one of
the phrases which the lawyer had used to me during my
first interview with him.
"That sounds rather far-fetched, MIr. Dexter," I said.
To my relief, he made no attempt to defend the new view
that he had advanced.
"It is far-fetched," he admitted. "When I said it was
just possible-though I didn't claim much for my idea-I
said more for it perhaps than it deserved. Dismiss my view
as ridiculous; what are you to do next? If Mrs. Beauly is
not the poisoner (either by herself or by her inaid), who is?
She is innocent, and Eustace is innocent. Where is the
other person whom you can suspect? Have I poisoned
her?" he cried, with his eyes flashing, and his voice rising
to its highest notes. "Do you, does any body, suspect Me?
I loved her; I adored her; I have never been the same man
since her death. Hush! I will trust you with a secret.
(Don't tell your husband; it might be the destruction of
our friendship.)  I would have married her, before she met
with Eustace, if she would have taken me. When the doctors told me she had died poisoned-ask Doctor Jerome
what I suffered; hle can tell you! All through that horrible
night I was awake; watching my opportunity until I found
Z.)                     11 3"-~I~~~~ —- ~'^J'r" ""   " "^ ~C~~



264            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
Miserrimus Dexter had sunk down in the chair. The
rough man lifted his master with a gentleness that surprised
me. "Hide my face," I heard Dexter say to him, in broken
tones. He opened his coarse pilot-jacket, and hid his master's head under it, and so went silently out-with the deformed creature held to his bosom, like a woman sheltering
her child.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
ARIEL.
I PASSED a sleepless night.
The outrage that had been offered to me was bad enough
in itself. But consequences were associated with it which
might affect me more seriously still. In so far as the attainment of the one object of my life might yet depend on my
personal association with Miserrimus Dexter, an insurmountable obstacle appeared to be now placed in my way. Even
in my husband's interests, ought I to permit a man who had
grossly insulted me to approach me again? Although I was
no prude, I recoiled fiom the thought of it.
I arose late, and sat down at my desk, trying to summon
energy enough to write to Mtr. Playmore-and trying in
vain.
Toward noon (while Benjamin happened to be out for a
little while) the housekeeper announced the arrival of another strange visitor at the gate of the villa.
"It's a woman this time, ma'am-or something like one,"
said this worthy person, confidentially. "A great, stout,
awkward, stupid creature, with a man's hat on, and a man's
stick in her hand. She says she has got a note for you, and
she won't give it to any body but you. I'd better not let
her in —had I?"
Recogrnizing the original of the picture, I astonished the
housekeeper by consenting to receive the messenger immediately.
Ariel entered the room-in stolid silence, as usual. But I
noticed a change in her which puzzled me. Her dull eyes
were red and bloodshot. Traces of tears (as I fancied) were
visible on her fat, shapeless cheeks, She crossed the room,



266            THE LANW AND THE LADY.
She roughly forced the stick into my hand; she turned
her poor shapeless shoulders to me, waiting for the blow.
It was at once dreadful and touching to see her. The tears
rose in my eyes. I tried, gently and patiently, to reason
with her. Quite useless! The idea of taking the Master's
punishment on herself was the one idea in her mind. " Don't
vex him," she repeated. "Beat me."
"What do you mean by'vexing him?'" I asked.
She tried to explain, and failed to find the words. She
showed me by imitation, as a savage might have shown me,
what she meant. Striding to the fire-place, she crouched on
the rug, and looked into the fire with a horrible vacant stare.
Then she clasped her hands over her forehead, and rocked
slowly to and fro, still staring into the fire. "There's how
he sits!" she said, with a sudden burst of speech. " Hours on
hours,there's how he sits! Notices nobody. Cries about yotu."
The picture she presented recalled to my memory the Report of Dexter's health, and the doctor's plain warning of
peril waiting for him in the future. Even if I could have
resisted Ariel, I must have yielded to the vague dread of
consequences which now shook me in secret.
"Don't do that!" I cried. She was still rocking herself
in imitation of the "Master," and still staring into the fire
with her hands to her head. "Get up, pray! I am not angry with him now. I forgive him."
She rose on her hands and knees, and waited, looking up
intently into my face. In that attitude-more like a dog
than a human being-she repeated her customary petition
when she wanted to fix words that interested her in her mind.
"Say it again!"
I did as she bade me. She was not satisfied.
"Say it as it is in the letter," she went on. "Say it as
the Master said it to Me."
I looked back at the letter, and repeated the form of message contained in the latter part of it, word for word: "I
forgive him; and one day I will let him see me again."
She sprang to her feet at a bound. For the first time since
she had entered the room her dull face began to break slowly into light and life.
"That's it i" she cried. "Hear if I can say it, too; hear
if I've got it by heart."
Teaching her exactly as I should have taught a child, I
slowly fastened the message, word by word, on her mind.



THE LAW AND THE LADY.              267
"Now rest yourself," I said; " and let me give you something to eat and drink after your long walk."
I might as well have spoken to one of the chairs. She
-snatched up her stick fiom the floor, and burst out with a
hoarse shout of joy. "I've got it by heart!" she cried.
"This will cool the Master's head! Hooray!" She dashed
out into the passage like a wild animal escaping from its
cage. I was just in time to see her tear open the garden
gate, and set forth on her walk back at a pace which made
it hopeless to attempt to follow and stop her.
I returned to the sitting-room, pondering on a question
which has perplexed wiser heads than mine. Could a man
who was hopelessly and entirely wicked have inspired such
devoted attachment to him as Dexter had inspired in the
faithful woman who had just left me? in the rough gardener
who had carried him out so gently on the previous night?
Who can decide? The greatest scoundrel living always has
a friend-in a woman or a dog.
I sat down again at my desk, and made another attempt
to write to IMr. Playmore.
Recalling, for the purpose of my letter, all that Miserrimus
Dexter had said to me, my memory dwelt with special interest on the strange outbreak of feeling which had led him
to betray the secret of his infatuation for Eustace's first
wife. I saw again the ghastly scene in the death-chamberthe deformed creature crying over the corpse in the stillness of the first dark hours of the new day. The horrible
picture took a strange hold on my mind. I arose, and walked
up and down, and tried to turn my thoughts some other way.
It was not to be done: the scene was too familiar to me to
be easily dismissed.  I had myself visited the room and
looked at the bed.  I had myself walked in the corridor
which Dexter had crossed on his way to take his last leave
of her.
The corridor? I stopped. My thoughts suddenly took a
new direction, uninfluenced by any effort of my will.
What other association besides the association with Dexter did I connect with the corridor?  Was it something I
had seen during my visit to Gleninch? No. Was it something I had read? I snatched up the Report of the Trial to
see. It opened at a page which contained the nurse's evidence. I read the evidence through again, without recover



270            THE LAWV AND THE LADY.
" You leave?" I said. " Do you suppose I will let you go
without me'?  Get my passport when you get yours. At
seven this evening I will be at your house."
She attempted to remonstrate; she spoke of the perils of
the journey. At the first words I stopped her.  "Don't
you know yet, mother, how obstinate I am?  They may
keep you waiting at the Foreign Office. Why do you waste
the precious hours here?"
She yielded with a gentleness that was not in her everyday character.  "Will my poor Eustace ever know what a
wife he has got?"  That was all she said. She kissed me,
and went away in her carriage.
MIy remembrances of our journey are strangely vague and
imperfect.
As I try to recall them, the memory of those more recent
and more interesting events which occurred after my return
to England gets between me and my adventures in Spain,
and seems to force these last into a shadowy background, until they look like adventures that happened many years
since. I confusedly recollect delays and alarms that tried
our patience and our courage. I remember our finding
friends (thanks to our letters of recommendation) in a Secretary to the Embassy and in a Queen's MIessenger, who assisted and protected us at a critical point in the journey. I
recall to mind a long succession of men in our employment
as travelers, all equally remarkable for their dirty cloaks and
their clean linen, for their highly civilized courtesy to women and their utterly barbarous cruelty to horses. Last, and
most important of all, I see again, more clearly than I can
see any thing else, the one wretched bedroom of a squalid
village inn in which we found our poor darling, prostrate between life and death, insensible to every thing that passed
in the narrow little world that lay around his bedside.
There was nothing romantic or interesting in the accident
which had put my husband's life in peril.
IHe had ventured too near the scene of the conflict (a miserable affair) to rescue a poor lad who lay wounded on the
field —mortally wounded, as the event proved. A rifle-bullet
had struck him in the body. His brethren of the field-hospital had carried him back to their quarters at the risk of
their lives. He was a great favorite with all of them; pa



272            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
him repeat it, almost always in the same wolds. On other
occasions his thoughts wandered away to my desperate project of proving him to be an innocent man. Sometimes he
laughed at it. Sometimes he mourned over it. Sometimes he
devised cunning schemes for placing unsuspected obstacles
in my way. He was especially hard on me when he was inventing his preventive stratagems-he cheerfully instructed
the visionary people who assisted him not to hesitate at offending or distressing me. "Never mind if you make her
angry; never mind if you make her cry. It's all for her good;
it's all to save the poor fool from dangers she doesn't dream
of. You mustn't pity her when she says she does it for my
sake. See! she is going to be insulted; she is going to be deceived; she is going to disgrace herself without knowing it.
Stop her! stop her 1" It was weak of me, I know; I ought to
have kept the plain fact that he was out of his senses always
present to my mind: still it is true that my hours passed at
my husband's pillow were many of them hours of mortification and misery of which he, poor deal, was the innocent and
only cause.
The weeks passed; and he still hovered between life and
death.
I kept no record of the time, and I can not now recall the exact date on which the first favorable change took place. I only
remember that it was toward sunrise on a fine winter morning when we were relieved at last of our heavy burden of
suspense. The surgeon happened to be by the bedside when
his patient awoke. The first thing hle did, after looking at
Eustace, was to caution me by a sign to be silent and to
keep out of sight. My mother-in-law and I both knew what
this meant. With full hearts we thanked God together for
giving us back the husband and the son.
The same evening, being alone, we ventured to speak of
the future-for the first time since we had left home.
"The surgeon tells me," said Mrs. Macallan, "that Eustace is too weak to be capable of bearing any thing in the
nature of a surprise for some days to come. We have time
to consider whether he is or is not to be told that he owes
his life as much to your care as to mine. Can you find it in
your heart to leave him,Valeria, now that God's mercy has
restored him to you and to me?"
" If I only consulted my own heart," I answered, " I should
never leave him again."



TIlE LAW AND THE LADY.             273
Mrs. Macallan looked at me in grave surprise.
"What else have you to consult?" she asked.
" If we both live," I replied, " I have to think of the happiness of his life and the happiness of mine in the years that
are to come. I can bear a great dleal, mother, but I can not
endure the misery of his leaving me for the second time."
"You wrong him,Valeria-I firmly believe you wrong himn
-in thinking it possible that he can leave you again."
"Dear /Mrs. Macallan, have you forgotten already what we
have both heard him say of me while we have been sitting
by his bedside?"
"We hlave heard the ravings of a man in delirium. It is
surely hard to hold Eustace responsible for what he said
when he was out of his senses."
"It is harder still," I said, " to resist his mother when she
is pleading for him. Dearest and best of friends! I don't
hold Eustace responsible for what he said in the fever —but
I do take warning by it. The wildest words that fell from
him were, one and all, the faithful echo of what he said to me
in the best days of his health and his strength. What hope
have I that he will recover with an altered mind toward
me? Absence has not changed it; suffering has not changed
it. In the delirium of fever, and in the full possession of his
reason, he has the same dreadful doubt of me. I see but one
way of winning him back: I must destroy at its root his
motive for leaving me. It is hopeless to persuade him that
I believe in his innocence: I must show him that belief is no
longer necessary; I must prove to him that his position toward me has become the position of an innocent man!"
" Valeria! Valeria! you are wasting time and words. You
have tried the experiment; and you know as well as I do
that the thing is not to be done."
I had no answer to that. I could say no more than I had
said already.
" Suppose you go back to Dexter, out of sheer compassion
for a mad and miserable wretch who has already insulted
you," proceeded my mother-in-law. " You can only go back
accompanied by me, or by some other trustworthy person.
You can only stay long enough to humor the creature's wayward fancy, and to keep his crazy brain quiet for a time.
That done, all is done —you leave him. Even supposing
Dexter to be still capable of helping you, how can you make



THE LAW AND THE LADY.             275
the one dear and noble hope of my life. I knew it-and I
said Yes.
And so good-by to the grand struggle! And so welcome to the new resignation which owned that I had failed.
My mother - in - law and I slept together under the only
shelter that the inn could offer to us -a sort of loft at the
top of the house. The night that followed our conversation
was bitterly cold. We felt the chilly temperature, in spite
of the protection of our dressing-gowns and our travelingwrappers. Miy mother-in-law slept, but no rest came to me.
I was too anxious and too wretched, thinking over my
changed position, and doubting how my husband would receive me, to be able to sleep.
Some hours, as I suppose, must have passed, and I was
still absorbed in my own melancholy thoughts, when I suddenly became conscious of a new and strange sensation which
astonished and alarmed me. I started up in the bed, breathless and bewildered. The movement awakened 3Mrs. 3Macallan. " Are you ill?" she asked. "What is the matter with
you?" I tried to tell her, as well as I could. She seemed to
understand me before I had done; she took me tenderly in
her arms, and pressed me to her bosom. " My poor innocent
child," she said, "is it possible you don't know? Must I
really tell you?" She whispered her next words. Shall I
ever forget the tumult of feelings which the whisper aroused
in me-the strange medley of joy and fear, and wonder and
relief, and pride and humility, which filled my whole being,
and made a new woman of me from that moment? Now,
for the first time, I knew it! If God spared me for a few
months more, the most enduring and the most sacred of all
human joys might be mine-the joy of being a mother.
I don't know how the rest of the night passed. I only
find my memory again when the morning came, and when I
went out by myself to breathe the crisp wintry air on the
open moor behind the inn.
I have said that I felt like a new woman. The morning
found me with a new resolution and a new courage. When
I thought of the future, I had not only my husband to consider now. His good name was no longer his own and mine
-it might soon become the most precious inheritance that
he could leave to his child. What had I done while I was in



2 76           THE LAW AND THE LADY.
ignorance of this? I had resigned the hope of cleansing his
name from the stain that rested on it —a stain still, no matter how little it might look in the eye of the Law. Our
child might live to hear malicious tongues say, " Your father
was tried for the vilest of all murders, and was never absolutely acquitted of the charge." Could I face the glorious
perils of childbirth with that possibility present to my mind?
No! not until I had made one more effort to lay the conscience of Miserrimus Dexter bare to my view! not until I
had once again renewed the struggle, and brought the truth
that vindicated the husband and the father to the light of
day!
I went back to the house, with my new courage to sustain
me. I opened my heart to my fiiend and mother, and told
her frankly of the change that had come over me since we
had last spoken of Eustaece.
She was more than disappointed-she was almost offended
with me. The one thing needful had happened, she said.
The happiness that might soon come to us would form a new
tie between my husband and me. Every other consideration but this she treated as purely fanciful. If I left Eustace
now, I did a heartless thing and a foolish thing. I should regret, to the end of my days, having thrown away the one
golden opportunity of my married life.
It cost me a hard struggle, it oppressed me with many a
painful doubt; but I held firm this time. The honor of the
father, the inheritance of the child-I kept these thoughts as
constantly as possible before my mind. Sometimes they
failed me, and left me nothing better than a poor fool who
had some fitful bursts of crying, and was always ashamed of
herself afterward. But my native obstinacy (as Mrs. MIacallan said) carried me through. Now and then I had a peep
at Eustace, while he was asleep; and that helped me too.
Though they made my heart ache and. shook me sadly at the
time, those furtive visits to my husband fortified me afterward. I can not explain how this happened (it seems so
contradictory); I can only repeat it as one of my experiences at that troubled time.
I made one concession to Mrs. Macallan-I consented to
wait for two days before I took any steps for returning to
England, on the chance that my mind might change in the
interval.



THE LAW AND THE LADY.              277
It was well for me that I yielded so far. On the second(lay the director of the field-hospital sent to the post-office
at our nearest town for letters addressed to him or to his
care. The messenger brought back a letter for me. I
thought I recognized the handwriting, and I was right.
Mr. Playmore's answer had reached me at last!
If I had been in any danger of changing my mind, the
good lawyer would have saved me in the nick of time. The
extract that follows contains the pith of his letter; and
shows how he encouraged me when! I stood in sore need of
a few cheering and friendly words.
"Let me now tell you," he wrote, "what I have done
toward verifying the conclusion to which your letter points.
" I have traced one of the servants who was appointed to
keep watch in the corridor on the night when the first Mrs.
Eustace died at Gleninch. The man perfectly remembers
that Miserrimus Dexter suddenly appeared before him and
his fellow-servant long after the house was quiet for the
night. Dexter said to them,'I suppose there is no harm in
my going into the study to read-? I can't sleep after what
has happened; I must relieve my mind somehow.' The men
had no orders to keep any one out of the study. They knew
that the door of communication with the bedchamber was
locked, and that the keys of the two other doors of communication were in the possession of Mr. Gale. They accordingly permitted Dexter to go into the study., He closed the
door (the door that opened on the corridor), and remained
absent for some time-in the study as the men supposed; in
the bedchamber as we know from what he let out at his interview with you. Now he could enter that room, as you
rightly imagine, in but one way-by being in possession of
the missing key. How long he remained there I can not
discover. The point is of little consequence. The servant
remembers that he came out of the study again'as pale as
death,' and that he passed on without a word on his way
back to his own room.
"These are facts. The conclusion to which they lead is
serious in the last degree. It justifies every thing that I confided to you in my office at Edinburgh. You remember
what passed between us. I say no more.
"As to yourself next. You have innocently aroused in
Miserrimus Dexter a feeling toward you which I need not
N



278            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
attempt to characterize. There is a certain something-I
saw it myself-in your figure, and in some of your movements, which does recall the late 3Mrs. Eustace to those who
knew her well, and which has evidently had its effect on
Dexter's morbid mind. Without dwelling further on this
subject, let me only remind you that he has shown himself
(as a consequence of your influence over him) to be incapable, in, his moments of agitation, of thinking before he speaks
while he is in your presence. It is not merely possible, it is
highly probable, that he may betray himself far more seriously than he has betrayed himself yet if you give him the
opportunity. I owe it to you (knowing what your interests
are) to express myself plainly on this point. I have no sort
of doubt that you have advanced one step nearer to the end
which you have in view in the brief interval since you left
Edinburgh. I see in your letter (and in my discoveries) irresistible evidence that Dexter must have been in secret
communication with the deceased lady (innocent communication, I am certain, so fat as she was concerned), not only at
the time of her death, but perhaps for weeks before it. I
can not disguise fiom myself, or from you, my own strong
persuasion that if you succeed in discovering the nature of
this communication, in all human likelihood you prove your
husband's innocence by the discovery of the truth. As an
honest man, I am bound not to conceal this. And, as an
honest man also, I am equally bound to add that, not even
with your reward in view, can I find it in my conscience to
advise you to risk what you must risk if you see Miserrimus
Dexter again. In this difficult and delicate matter I can
not and will not take the responsibility: the final decision
must rest with yourself. One favor only I entreat you to
grant —let me hear what you resolve to do as soon as you
know it yourself."
The difficulties which my worthy correspondent felt were
no difficulties to me. I did not possess Mr. Playmore's judicial mind. My resolution was settled before I had'read his
letter through.
The mail to France crossed the fiontier the next day.
There was a place for me, under the protection of the con.
ductor, if I chose to take it. Without consulting a living
creature —rash as usual, headlong as usual-I took it.



28 0           THE LAW AND THE. LADY.
Time has got all the credit of being the great consoler of
afflicted mortals. In my opinion, Time has been overrated
in this matter. Distance does the same beneficent work far
more speedily, and (when assisted by Change) far more effectually as well. On the railroad to Paris, I became capable of taking a sensible view of my position. I could now
remind myself that my husband's reception of me-after the
first surprise and the first happiness had passed away-might
not have justified his mother's confidence in him. Admitting
that I ran a risk in going back to MIiserrimus Dexter, should
I not have been equally rash, in another way, if I had returned, uninvited, to a husband who had declared that our
conjugal happiness was impossible, and that our married life
was at an end? Besides, who could say that the events of
the future might not yet justify me-not only to myself, but
to him?  I might yet hear him say, "She was inquisitive
when she had no business to inquire; she Was obstinate when'
she ought to have listened to reason; she left my bedside
when other women would have remained; but in the end
she atoned for it all-she turned out to be right!"
I rested a day at Paris, and wrote three letters.
One to Benjamin, telling him to expect me the next evenin(. One to Mr. Playmore, warning him, in good time, that
I meant to make a last effort to penetrate the mystery at
Gleninch. One to Eustace (of a few lines only), owning that
I had helped to nurse him through the dangerous part of his
illness; confessing the one reason which had prevailed with
me to leave him; and entreating him to suspend his opinion
of me until time had proved that I loved him more dearly
than ever. -This last letter I inclosed to my mother-in-law,
leaving it to her discretion to choose the right time for giving it to her son. I positively forbade Mrs. Macallan, however, to tell Eustace of the new tie between us. Although
he ha(d separated himself from me, I was determined that he
should not hear it from other lips than mine. Never mind
why. There are certain little matters which I must keep to
myself; and this is one of them.
My letters being written, my duty was done. I was free
to play my last card in the game-the darkly doubtful game
which was neither quite for me nor quite against me as the
chances now stood.



TEE LAW AND THE LADY.               281
CHAPTER XXXIX.
ON THE WAY TO DEXTER.
"I DECLARE to Heaven, Valeria, I believe that monster's
madness is infectious —and you have caught it!"
This was Benjamin's opinion of me (on my safe arrival at
the villa) after I had announced my intention of returning
Miserrimuls Dexter's visit, in his company.
Being determined to carry my point, I could afford to try
the influence of mild persuasion. I begged my good friend
to have a little patience with me. "And do remember what
I have already told you," I added. "It is of serious importance to me to see Dexter agrain."
I only heaped fuel on the fire. "See him again?" Benjamin repeated, indignantly. "See him, after he grossly insulted you, under my roof, in this very room? I can't be
awake; I must be asleep and dreaming!"
It was wrong of me, I know. But Benjamin's virtuous indignation was so very virtuous that it let the spirit of mischief loose in me. I really could not resist the temptation
to outrage his sense of propriety by taking an audaciously
liberal view of the whole matter.
"Gently, my good friend, gently," I said. "We must
make allowances for a man who suffers under Dexter's in.
firmities, and lives Dexter's life. And really we must not
let our modesty lead us beyond reasonable limits. I begin
to think that I took rather a prudish view of the thing myself at the time. A woman who respects herself, and whose
whole heart is with her husband, is not so very seriously injured when a wretched crippled creature is rude enough to
put his arm around her waist. Virtuous indignation (if I
may venture to say so) is sometimes very cheap indignation.
Besides, I have forgiven him-and you must forgive him too.
There is no fear of his forgetting himself again, while you
are with me. His house is quite a curiosity —it is sure to interest you; the pictures alone are worth the journey. I will
write to him to-day, and we will go aiqr see him together tomorrow. We owe it to ourselves (if we don't owe it to Mr.



282            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
Dexter) to pay this visit. If you will look about you, Benjamin, you will see that benevolence toward every body is
the great virtue of the time we live in. Poor Mr. Dexter
must have the benefit of the prevailing fashion. Come, come,
march with the age! Open your mind to the new ideas!"
Instead of accepting this polite invitation, worthy old Benjamin flew at the age we lived in like a bull at a red cloth.
"Oh, the new ideas! the new ideas! By all manner of
means, Valeria, let us have the new ideas! The old morality's all wrong, the old ways are all worn out. Let's march
with the age we live in. Nothing comes amiss to the age
we live in. The wife in England and the husband in Spain,
married or not married, living together or not living together-it's all one to the new ideas. I'll go with you, Valeria; I'll be worthy of the generation I live in. When we
have done with Dexter, don't let's do things by halves. Let's
go and get crammed with ready-made science at a lectureclet's hear the last new professor, the man who has been behind the scenes at Creation, and knows to a T how the world
was made, and how long it took to make it. There's the other
fellow, too: mind we don't forget the modern Solomon, who
has left his proverbs behind him-the brand-new philosopher
who considers the consolations of religion in the light of
harmless playthings, and who is kind enough to say that he
might have been all the happier if he could only have been
childish enough to play with them himself. Oh, the new
ideas! the new ideas!-what consoling, elevating, beautiful
discoveries have been made by the new ideas! We were all
monkeys before we were men, and molecules before we were
monkeys! And what does it matter?  And what does any
thing matter to any body? I'm with you, Valeria, I'm ready.
The sooner the better. Come to Dexter! Come to Dexter!"
"I anr so glad you agree with me," I said. "But let us
do nothing in a hurry. Three o'clock to-morrow will be time
enough for Mr. Dexter. I will write at once and tell him to
expect us. Where are you going?"
"I am going to clear my mind of cant," said Benjamin,
sternly. "I am going into the library."
"What are you going to read?"
"I am going to read- Puss in Boots, and Jack and the
Bean-stalk, and any thing else I can find that doesn't march
with the ace we live in."



THE LAW AND THE LADY.              283
With that parting shot at the new ideas, my old friend
left me for a time.
Having dispatched my note, I found myself beginning to
revert, with a certain feeling of anxiety, to the subject of
Miserrimus Dexter's health. How had he passed through
the interval of my absence from England? Could any body,
withini my reach, tell me news of him? To inquire of Benjamin would only be to provoke a new outbreak. While I
was still considering, the housekeeper entered the room on
some domestic errand. I asked, at a venture, if she had
heard any thing more while I had been away, of the extraordinary person who had so seriously alarmed her on a former
occasion.
The housekeeper shook her head, and looked as if she
thought it in bad taste to mention the subject at all.
"About a week after you had gone away, ma'am," she
said, with extreme severity of manner, and with excessive
carefulness in her choice of words, " the Person you mention
lhad the impudence to send a letter to you. The messenger
was informed, by my master's orders, that you had gone
abroad, and he and his letter were both sent about their
business together. Not long afterward, ma'am, I happened,
while drinking tea with MIrs. Macallan's housekeeper, to hear
of the Person again. He himself called in his chaise, at Mrs.
Macallan's, to inquire about you there. How he can contrive
to sit,without legs to balance him, is beyond my understanding —but that is neither here nor there. Legs or no legs, the
housekeeper saw him, and she says, as I say, she will never
forget him to her dying day. She told him (as soon as she
recovered herself) of Mr. Eustace's illness, and of you and
Mrs. Macallan being in foreign parts nursing him. He went
away, so the housekeeper told me, with tears in his eyes, and
oaths and curses on his lips-a sight shocking to see. That's
all I know about the Person, ma'am, and I hope to be excused if I venture to say that the subject is (for good reasons) extremely disagreeable to me."
She made a formal courtesy, and quitted the room.
Left by myself, I felt more anxious and more uncertain
than ever when I thought of the experiment that was to be
tried on the next day. Making due allowance for exaggeration, the description of Miserrimus Dexter on his departure
from Mrs. Macallan's house suggested that he had not en



284            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
dured my long absence very patiently, and that he was still
as far as ever from giving his shattered nervous system its
fair chance of repose.
The next morning brought me Mr. Playmore's reply to
the letter which I had addressed to him fiom Paris.
HIe wrote very briefly, neither approving nor blaming my
decision, but strongly reiterating his opinion that I should
do well to choose a competent witness as my companion at
lny coming interview with Dexter. The most interesting
part of the letter was at the end. "You must be prepared,"
M3r. Playmore wrote, " to see a change for the worse in Dexter. A fiiend of mine was with him on a matter of business
a few days since, and was struck by the alteration in him.
Your presence is sure to have its effect, one way or another.
I can give you no instructions for managing him-you must
be guided by the circumstances. Your own tact will tell
you whether it is wise or not to encourage him to speak of
the late Mrs. Eustace. The chances of his betraying himself
all revolve (as I think) round that one topic: keep him to it
if you can." To this was added, in a postscript: " Ask Mr.
Benjamin if he were near enough to the library door to hear
Dexter tell you of his entering the bedchamber on the night
of Mrs. Eustace Macallan's death."
I put the question to Benjamin when we met at the luncheon-table before setting forth for the distant suburb in which
Miserrimus Dexter lived. My old friend disapproved of the
contemplated expedition as strongly as ever. He was unusually grave and unusually sparing of his words when he
answered me.
"I am no listener," he said. "But some people have
voices which insist on being heard. Mr. Dexter is one of
them."
"Does that mean that you heard him?" I asked.
" The door couldn't muffle him, and the wall couldn't muffle him," Benjamin rejoined. "I heard him-and I thought
it infamous. There!"
"I may want you to do more than hear him this time," I
ventured to say. "I may want you to make notes of our
conversation while IMr. Dexter is speaking to me. You used
to write down what my father said, when he was dictating
his letters to you. Have you got one of your little notebooks to spare?"



THE LAW AND THE LADY.             285
Benjamin looked up from his plate with an aspect of stern
surprise.
"It's one thing," he said, "to write under the dictation
of a great merchant, conducting a vast correspondence by
which thousands of pounds change hands in due course of
post. And it's another thing to take down the gibberish
of a maundering mad monster who ought to be kept in a
cage. Your good father, Valeria, would never have asked
me to do that."
"Forgive me, Benjamin; I must really ask you to do it.
You may be of the greatest possible use to me. Come,
give way this once, dear, for my sake."
Benjamin looked down. again at his plate, with a rueful
resignation which told me that I had carried my point.
"I have been tied to her apron-string all my life," I heard
him grumble to himself; "and it's too late in the day to
get loose from her now." He looked up again at me. "I
thought I had retired from business," he said; "but it
seems I must turn clerk again. Well? What is the new
stroke of work that's expected from me this time?"
The cab was announced to be waiting for us at the gate
as he asked the question. I rose and took his arm, and gave
him a grateful kiss on his rosy old cheek.
"Only two things," I said. "Sit down behind Mr. Dexter's chair, so that he can't see you. But take care to place
yourself, at the same time, so that you can see me."
" The less I see of Mr. Dexter the better I shall be pleased,"
growled Benjamin. "What am I to do after I have taken
my place behind him?"
"You are to wait until I make you a sign; and when you
see it you are to begin writing down in your note-book what
Mr. Dexter is saying- and you are to go on until I make
another sign, which means, Leave off!"
"Well?" said Benjamin, " what's the sign for Begin? and
what's the sign for Leave off?"
I was not quite prepared with an answer to this. I asked
him to help me with a hint. No! Benjamin would take
no active part in the matter. He was resigned to be employed in the capacity of passive instrument-and there all
concession ended, so far as he was concerned.
Left to my own resources, I found it no easy matter to invent a telegraphic system which should sufficiently inform
N2



286            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
Benjamin, without awakening Dexter's quick suspicion. I
looked into the glass to see if I could find the necessary suggestion in any thing that I wore. My earrings supplied me
with the idea of which I was in search.
"I shall take care to sit in an arm-chair," I said. " When
you see me rest my elbow on the chair, and lift my hand to
my earring, as if I were playing with it-write down what
he says; and go on until — well, suppose we say, until you
hear me move my chair. At that sound, stop. You understand me?"
"I understand you."
WYe started for Dexter's house.
CHAPTER XL.
NE MESIS AT  LAST.
THE gardener opened the gate to us on this occasion. He
had evidently received his orders in anticipation of my arrival.
"Mrs. Valeria?" he asked.
-" Yes."
"And friend?"
" And fiiend."
"Please to step up-stairs. You know the house."
Crossing the hall, I stopped for a moment, and looked at
a favorite walking-cane which Benjamin still kept in his
hand.
" Your cane will only be in your way," I said. "Had you
not better leave it here?"
"My cane may be useful up-stairs," retorted Benjamin,
gruffly. "I haven't forgotten what happened in the library."
It was no time to contend with him. I led the way up
the stairs.
Arriving at the upper flight of steps, I was startled by
hearing a sudden cry from the room above. It was like the
cry of a person in pain; and it was twice repeated before
we entered the circular antechamber. I was the first to approach the inner room, and to see the many-sided Miserrimus Dexter in another new aspect of his character.
The unfortunate Ariel was standing before a table, with a



THE LAW AND THE LADY.               287
dish of little cakes placed in front of her. Round each of her
wrists was tied a string, the fiee ends of which (at a distance
of a few yards) were held in Miserrimus Dexter's hands.
"Try again, my beauty!" I heard him say, as I stopped on
the threshold of the door. "Take a cake." At the word
of command, Ariel submissively stretched out one arm toward the dish. Just as she touched a cake with the tips of
her fingers her hand was jerked away by a pull at the string,
so savagely cruel in the nimble and devilish violence of it
that I felt inclined to snatch Benjamin's cane out of his hand
and break it over Miserrimus Dexter's back. Ariel suffered
the pain this time in Spartan silence. The position in which
she stood enabled her to be the first to see me at the door.
She had discovered me. Her teeth were set; her face was
flushed under the struggle to restrain herself. Not even a
sigh escaped her in my-presence.
"Drop the string!" I called out, indignantly.  "Release
her, Mr. Dexter, or I shall leave the house."
At the sound of my voice he burst out with a shrill cry of
welcome. His eyes fastened on me with a fierce, devouring
delight.
"' Come in! come in!" he cried. " See what I am reduced
to in the maddening suspense of waiting for you. See how
I kill the time when the time parts us. Come in! come in!
I am in one of my malicious humors this morning, caused
entirely, Mrs.Valeria, by my anxiety to see you.  When I
am in my malicious humors I must tease something. I am
teasing Ariel. Look at her! She has had nothing to eat all
day, and she hasn't been quick enough to snatch a morsel of
cake yet. You needn't pity her. Ariel has no nerves-I
don't hurt her."
"Ariel has no nerves,' echoed the poor creature, frowning
at me for interfering between her master and herself. "He
doesn't hurt me."
I heard Benjamin beginning to swing his cane behind me.
"Drop the string!" I reiterated, more vehemently, than
ever.. "Drop it, or I shall instantly leave you."
Miserrimus Dexter's delicate nerves shuddered at my violence. " What a glorious voice!" he exclaimed —and dropped the string.  "Take the cakes," he added, addressing
Ariel in his most imperial manner.
She passed me, with the strings hanging from her swolle!l



288            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
wrists, and the dish of cakes in her hand. She nodded her
head at me defiantly.
"Ariel has got no nerves," she repeated, proudly. "He
doesn't hurt me."
"You see," said 3Miserrimus Dexter, "there is no harm
done-and I dropped the strings when you told me. Don't
begin by being hard on me, Mrs.Valeria, after your long absence." He paused. Benjamin, standing silent in the doorway, attracted his attention for the first time.  "Who is
this?" he asked, and wheeled his chair suspiciously nearer
to the door. "I know!" he cried, before I could answer.
"This is the benevolent gentleman who looked like the ref:
uge of the afflicted when I saw him last.-You have altered
for the worse since then, sir. You have stepped into quite
a new character-you personify Retributive Justice now.Your new protector, Mrs.Valeria-I understand!" He bowed low to Benjamin, with ferocious irony. "Your humble
servant, Mr. Retributive Justice! I have deserved youand I submit to you.  Walk in, sir! I will take care that
your new office shall be a sinecure. This lady is the Light
of my Life. Catch me failing in respect to her if you can!"
He backed his chair before Benjamin (who listened to him
in contemptuous silence) until he reached the part of the
room in which I was standing.  "Your hand, Light of my
Life!" he murmured in his gentlest tones. "Your handonly to show that you have forgiven me!" I'gave him my
hand. "One?" he whispered, entreatingly.  "Only one?"
He kissed my hand once, respectfully-and dropped it with
a heavy sigh. " Ah, poor Dexter!" he said, pitying himself
with the whole sinfcerity of his egotism. "A -warm heart
wasted in solitude, mocked by deformity. Sad! sad! Ah,
poor Dexter!" He looked round again at Benjamin, with
another flash of his ferocious irony. "A beauteous day, sir,"
he said, with mock-conventional courtesy.  "Seasonable
weather indeed after the late long-continued rains. Can I
offer you any refreshment? Won't you sit down? Retributive Justice, when it is no taller than you are, looks best in
a chair."
"And a monkey looks best in a cage," rejoined Benjamin,
enraged at the satirical reference to his shortness of stature.
"I was waiting, sir, to see you get into your swing."
The retort produced no effect on MIiserrimus Dexter: it



THE LAW AND THE LADY.              289
appeared to have passed by him unheard. He had changed
again; he was thoughtful, he was subdued; his eyes were
fixed on me with a sad and rapt attention. I took the nearest arm-chair, first casting a glance at Benjamin, which he
immediately understood. He placed himself behind Dextelr,
at an angle which commanded a view of my chair. Ariel,
silently devouring her cakes, crouched on a stool at "the
Master's" feet, and looked up at him like a faithful dog.
There was an interval of quiet and repose. I was able to
observe Miserrimus Dexter uninterruptedly for the first time
since I had entered the room.
I was not surprised-I was nothing less than alarmed by
the change for the worse in him since we had last met. Mr.
Playmore's letter had not prepared me for the serious deterioration in him which I could now discern.
His features were pinched and worn; the whole face seemed to have wasted strangely in substance and size since I had
last seen it. The softness in his eyes was gone. - Blood-red
veins were intertwined all over them now: they were set in
a piteous and vacant stare; His once firm hands looked withered; they trembled as they lay on the coverlet. The paleness of his face (exaggerated, perhaps, by the black velvet
jacket that he wore) had a sodden and sickly look-the fine
outline was gone. The multitudinous little wrinkles at the
corners of his eyes had deepened.  His head sank into his
shoulders when he leaned forward in his chair. Years appeared to have passed over him, instead of months, while I
had been absent from England. Remembering the medical
report which Mr. Playmore had given me to read —recalling
the doctor's positively declared opinion that the preservation
of Dexter's sanity depended on the healthy condition of his
nerves-I could not but feel that I had done wisely (if I
might still hope for success) in hastening my return from
Spain. Knowing what I knew, fearing what I feared, I believed that his time was near. I felt, when our eyes met by
accident, that I was looking at a doomed man.
I pitied him.
Yes, yes! I know that compassion for him was utterly inconsistent with the motive which had taken me to his house
-utterly inconsistent with the doubt, still present to my
mind, whether Mr. Playmore had really wronged him in believinc that his was the guilt which had compassed the first



290            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
Mrs. Eustace's death. I felt this: I knew him to be cruel;
I believed him to be false. And yet I pitied him! Is there
a common fund of wickedness in us all? Is the suppression
or the development of that wickedness a mere question of
training and temptation?  And is there something in our
deeper sympathies which mutely acknowledges this wheni
we feel for the wicked; when we crowd to a criminal trial;
when we shake hands at parting (if we happen to be present
officially) with the vilest monster that ever swung; on a gallows? It is not for me to decide. I can only say that I
pitied Miserrimus Dexter-and that he found it out.
"Thank you," he said, suddenly. "You see I am ill, and
you feel for me. Dear and good Valeria!"
"This lady's name, sir, is Mrs. Eustace Macallan," interposed Benjamin, speaking sternly behind him.  "The next
time you address her, remember, if you please, that you have
no business with her Christian name."
Benjamin's rebuke passed, like Benjamin's retort, unheeded and unheard. To all appearance, Miserrimus Dexter had
completely forgotten that there was such a person in the
01oom.
"You have delighted me with the sight of you," he went
on. "Add to the pleasure by letting me hear your voice.
Talk to me of yourself. Tell me what you have been doing
since you left England."
It was necessary to my object to set the conversation afloat;
and this was as good a way of doing it as any other. I told
him plainly how I had been employed during my absence.
" So you are still fond of Eustace?" he said, bitterly.
" I love him more dearly than ever."
He lifted his hands, and hid his face. After waiting a
while, he went on, speaking in an odd, muffled manner, still
under cover of his hands.
" And you leave Eustace in Spain," he said; " and you return to England by yourself! What made you do that?"
"What made me first come here and ask you to help me,
Mr. Dexter?"
He dropped his hands, and looked at me. I saw in his
eyes, not amazement only, but alarm.
"Is it possible," he exclaimed, "that you won't let that
miserable matter rest even yet? Are you still determined
to penetrate the mystery at Gleninch?"



292            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
flesh creep. Come on. A good long story. All blood and
crimes."
Had she accidentally hit on the right suggestion to strike
his wayward fancy? I knew his high opinion of his own
skill in " dramatic narrative."  I'knew that one of his favorite amusements was to puzzle Ariel by telling her stories
that she could not understand. Would he wander away
into the regions of wild romance? Or would he remember
that my obstinacy still threatenecl him with reopening the
inquiry into the tragedy at Gleninch? and would he set his
cunning at work to mislead me by some new stratagem?
This latter course was the course which my past experience
of him suggested that he would take. But, to my surprise
and alarm, I found my past experience at fault.  Ariel succeeded in diverting his mind from the subject which had been in
full possession of it the moment before she spoke! He showed
his face again. It was overspread by a broad smile of gratified self-esteem. He was weak enough now to let even Ariel
find her way to his vanity. I saw it with a sense of misgiving, with a doubt whether I had not delayed my visit until
too late, which turned me cold from head to foot.
Miserrimus Dexter spoke-to Ariel, not to me.
"Poor devil!" he said, patting her head complacently.
"You don't understand a word of my stories, do you? And
yet I can make the flesh creep on your great clumsy bodyand yet I can hold your muddled mind, and make you like
it. Poor devil!" He leaned back serenely in his chair,,and looked my way again. Would the sight of me remind
him of the words that had passed between us not a minute
since?  No! There was the pleasantly tickled self-conceit
smiling at me exactly as it had smiled at Ariel. " I excel in
dramatic narrative, Mrs.Valeria," he said.." And this creature here on the stool is a remarkable proof of it. She is quite
a psychological study when I tell her one of my stories. It is
really amusing to see the half-witted wretch's desperate efforts to understand me. You shall have a specimen. I have
been out of spirits while you were away-I haven't told her
a story for weeks past; I will tell her one now. Don't suppose it's any effort to me! My invention is inexhaustible.
You are sure to be amused-you are naturally serious —but
you are sure to be amused. I am naturally serious too; and
I always laugh at her."



294            TIlE LAWV AND THE LADY.
self to me. "Poetry and music improvised by Dexter.: Silence! Attention!"
His fingers wandered feebly over the harp-strings, awakening no melody, suggesting no words. In a little while
his hand dropped; his head sank forward gently, and rested
on the fiame of the harp. I started to my feet, and approached him. Was it a sleep? or was it a swoon?
I touched his arm, and called to him by his name.
Ariel instantly stepped between us, with a threatening
look at me. At the same moment Miserrimus Dexter raised
his head. My voice had reached him. He looked at me
with a curious contemplative quietness in his eyes which I
had never seen in them before.
"Take away the harp," he said to Ariel, speaking in languid tones, like a man who was very weary.
The mischievous, half-witted creature-in sheer stupidity
or in downright malice, I am not sure which-irritated him
once more.
"Why, Master?" she asked, staring at him with the harp
hugged in her arms. "What's come to you? where is the
story?"
" We don't want the story," I interposed. "I have many
things to say to Mr. Dexter which I have not said yet."
Ariel lifted her heavy hand. "You qwill have it!" she
said, and advanced toward me. At the same moment the
Master's voice stopped her.
"Put away the harp, you fool!" he repeated, sternly.
"And wait for the story until I choose to tell it."
She took the harp submissively back to its place at the end
of the room. Miserrimus Dexter moved his chair a little
closer to mine. " I know what will rouse me," he said, con,
fidentially. "Exercise will do it. I have had no exercise
lately. WVait a little, and you will see."
He put his hands on the machinery of the chair, and started on his customary course down the room. Here again the
ominous change in him showed itself under a new form.
The pace at which he traveled was not the fillrious pace that
I remembered; the chair no longer rushed under him on
rumbling and whistling wheels. It went, but it went slowly. Up the room and down the room he painfully urged it
-and then he stopped for want of breath.
We followed him. Ariel was first, and Benjamin was by



296            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
"One last effort," I whispered back. "Only one!"
Ariel went drowsily on with her song"Tell us the story. Master! master! tell us the story."
Miserrimus Dexter looked up from his glass. The generous stimulant was beginning to do its work. I saw the color rising in his face. I saw the bright intelligence flashing
again in his eyes. The Burgundy had roused him! The
good wine stood my fiiend, and offered me a last chance!
" No story," I said. "I want to talk to you, Mr. Dexter.
I am not in the humor for a story."
"Not in the humor?" he repeated,with a gleam of the old
impish irony showing itself again in his face. "That's an
excuse. I see what it is! You think my invention is gone
-and you are not fiank enough to confess it. I'll show you
you're wrong. I'll show you that Dexter is himself again.
Silence, you Ariel, or you shall leave the room! I have got
it, MIrs. Valeria, all laid out here, with scenes and characters
complete."  Ile touched his forehead, and looked at me with
a furtive and smiling cunning before he added his next
words. "It's the very thing to interest you, my fair friend.
It's the story of a Mistress and a Maid. Come back to the
fire and hear it."
The Story of a Mistress and a Maid?  If that meant any
thing, it meant the story of Mrs. Beauly and her maid, told
in disguise.
The title, and the look which had escaped him when he announced it, revived the hope that was well-nigh dead in me.
He had rallied at last. He was again in possession of his
natural foresight and his natural cunning. Under pretense
of telling Ariel her story, he was evidently about to make
the attempt to mislead me for the second time. The conclusion was irresistible. To use his own words-Dexter
was himself again.
I took Benjamin's arm as we followed him back to the fireplace in the middle of the room. "There is a chance for me
yet," I whispered. "Don't forget the signals."
We returned to the places which we had already occupied. Ariel cast another threatening look at me. She had
just sense enough left, after emptying her goblet of wine,.to
be on the watch for a new interruption on my part. I took
care, of course, that nothing of the sort should happen. I
was now as eager as Ariel to hear the story. The subject



298            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
close at hand on a little sliding table attached to his chair.
I watched him narrowly as he sipped the wine. The flush
was still mounting in his face; the light was still brightening
in his eyes. He set down his glass again, with a jovial smack
of his lips-and went on:
"Persons present in the vaulted chamber: Cunegonda and
Damoride.  Cunegonda speaks.'Damoride!''Madam?''Who lies ill in the chamber above us?''Madam, the noble lady Angelica.' (A pause. Cunegonda speaks again.)' Damoride!'' Madam?''How does Angelica like you?'' Madam, the noble la ly, sweet and good to all who approach
her, is sweet and good to me.''Have you attended on her,
Damoride?'' Sometimes, madam, when the nurse was weary.''Has she taken her healing medicine from your hand?'' Once
or twice, madam, when I happened to be by.''Damoride,
take this key and open the casket on the table there.' (Damoride obeys.)'Do you see a green vial in the casket?''I
see it, madam.''Take it out.' (Damoride obeys.)'Do you
see a liquid in the green vial? can you guess what it is?''No, madam.''Shall I tell you?' (Damoride bows respectfully.)'Poison is in the vial.' (Damoride starts; she shrinks
from the poison; she would fain put it aside. IHer mistress
signs to her to keep it in her hand; her mistress speaks.)'Damoride, I have told you one of my secrets; shall I tell
you another?' (Damoride waits, fearing what is to come.
Her mistress speaks.)'I hate the Lady Angelica. Her life
stands between me and the joy of my heart. You hold her
life in your hand.' (Damoride drops on her knees; she is a
devout person; she crosses herself, and then she speaks.)'Mistress, you terrify me. Mistress, what do I hear?' (Cunegonda advances, stands over her, looks down on her with
terrible eyes, whispers the next words.)'Damoride! the
Lady Angelica must die-and I must not be suspected. The
Lady Angelica must die-and by your hand."'
He paused again. To sip the wine once more? No; to
drink a deep draught of it this time.
Was the stimulant beginning to fail him already?
I looked at him attentively as he laid himself back again
in his chair to consider for a moment before he went on.
The flush on his face was as deep as ever; but the brightness in his eyes was beginning to fade already. I had no.
ticed that he spoke more and more slowly as he advanced to



302            THE LAW AN D THE LADY.
and changeless, they were eyes that seemed to be fixed on
something far away. Even his voice was altered when he
spoke next. It had dropped to a quiet, vacant, monotonous
tone. I had heard something like it while I was watching
by my husband's bedside, at the time of his.delirium-when
Eustace's mind appeared to be too weary to follow his speech.
Was the end so near as this?
"I called her Cunegonda," he repeated. "And I called
the otherl-"
He stopped once more.
"And you called the other Damoride," I said.
Ariel looked up at him with a broad stare of bewilderment. She pulled impatiently at the sleeve of his jacket to
attract his notice.
" Is this the story, Master?" she asked.
He answered without looking at her, his changeless eyes
still fixed, as it seemed, on something far away.
"This is the story," he said, absently. "But why Cunegonda? why Damoride? W-hy not Mistress and Maid? It's
easier to remember Mistress and Maid-"
He hesitated; he shivered as he tried to raise himself in
his chair. Then he seemed to rally. "What did the Maid
say to the Mistress?" he muttered. " What? what? what?"
He hesitated again. Then something seemed to dawn upon
him unexpectedly. Was it some new thought that had
struck him? or some lost thought that he had recovered?
Impossible to say.
He went on, suddenly and rapidly went on, in these strange
words:
"'The letter,' the Maid said;'the letter. Oh, my heart.
Every word a dagger. A dagger in my heart. Oh, you letter. Horrible, horrible, horrible letter.' "
What, in God's name, was he talking about? What did
those words mean?
Was he unconsciously pursuing his faint and fragmentary
recollections of a past time at Gleninch, under the delusion
that he was going on with the story? In the wreck of the
other faculties, was memory the last to sink? Was the truth,
the dreadful truth, glimmering on me dimly through the awful shadow cast before it by the advancing eclipse of the
brain? My breath failed me; a nameless horror crept through
my whole being.



THE LAWT AND THE LADY.             303
Benjamin, with his pencil in his hand, cast one warning
look at me. Ariel was quiet and satisfied. "Go on, Master," was all she said. "I like it! I like it! Go on with
the story."
He wvent on-like a man sleeping with his eyes open, and
talking in his sleep.
"The Maid said to the Mistress. No-the Mistress said
to the Maid. The Mistress said,' Show him the letter. Must,
must, must do it.' The Maid said,' No. Mustn't do it. Shaln't
show it. Stuff. Nonsense. Let him suffer. We can get him
off. Show it? No. Let the worst come to the worst. Show
it, then.' The Mistress said-"  He paused, and waved his
hand rapidly to and fro before his eyes, as if he were brushing away some visionary confusion or entanglement. " Which
was it last?" he said- " Mistress or Maid? Mistress? No.
Maid speaks, of course. Loud. Positive.'You scoundrels.
Keep away fiom that table. The Diary's there. Number
N ine, Caldershaws. Ask for Dandie. You sha'n't have the
Diary. A secret in your car. The Diary will hang him. I
won't have him hangced. How dare you touch my chair?
My chair is Me! How dare you touch Me?'"
The last words burst on me like a gleam of light! I had
read them in the Report of the Trial-in the evidence of the
sheriff's officer. Miserrimus Dexter had spoken in those very
terms when he had tried vainly to prevent the men from seizing my husband's papers, and when the men had pushed his
chair out of the room. There was no doubt now of what his
memory was busy with. The mystery at Gleninch! His last
backward flight of thought circled feebly and more feebly
nearer and nearer to the mystery at Gleninch!
Ariel aroused him again. She had no mercy on him; she
insisted on hearing the whole story.
"Why do you stop, Master?  Get along with it! get
along with it! Tell us quick-what did the Mlissus say to
the Maid?"
He laughed feebly, and tried to imitate her.
"' What did the Missus say to the Maid?"' he repeated.
His laugh died away. He went on speaking, more and more
vacantly, more and more rapidly. "The Mistress said to
the Maid,'We've got him off. What about the letter?
Burn it now. No fire in the grate. No matches in the box.
HIouse topsy-turvy. Servants all gone. Tear it uip. Shake



TIIE LAWT AND THE LADY.             307
" What are you going to do with it?"
"I don't know yet. I will ask Mr. Playmore."
CHAPTER XLI.
MR. PLAYMORE IN A NEW CHARACTER.
BY that night's post-although I was far from being fit to
make the exertion - I wrote to Mr. Playmore, to tell him
what had taken place, and to beg for his earliest assistance
and advice.
The notes in Benjamin's book were partly written in shorthand, and were, on that account, of no use to me in their existing condition. At my request, he made two fair copies.
One of the copies I inclosed in my letter to Mr. Playmore.
The other I laid by me, on my bedside table, when I went
to rest.
Over and over again, through the long hours of the wakeful night, I read and reread the last words which had
dropped from Miserrimus Dexter's lips. Was it possible to
interpret them- to any useful purpose?  At the very outset
they seemed to set interpretation at defiance. After trying
vainly to solve the hopeless problem, I did at last what I
might as well have done at first-I threw down the paper in
despair. Where were -my bright visions of discovery and
success now?  Scattered to the winds! Was there the
faintest chance of the stricken man's return to reason? I
remembered too well what I had seen to hope for it. The
closing lines of the medical report which I had read in Mr.
Playmore's office recurred to my memory in the stillness of
the night-" When the catastrophe has happened, his friends
can entertain no h.ope of his cure: the balance once lost, will
be lost for life."
The confirmation of that terrible sentence was not long in
reaching me. On the next morning the gardener brought a
note containing the information which the doctor had promised to give me on the previous day.
MIiserrimus Dexter and Ariel were still Where Benjamin
and I had left them together-in the long room. They were
watched by skilled attendants, waiting the decision of Dexter's nearest relative (a younger blother), who lived in the



308            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
country, and who had-been communicated with by telegraph.
It had been found impossible to part the faithfil Ariel f'omn
her master without using the bodily restraints adopted in
cases of raginig insanity. The doctor and the gardener (both
unusually strong men) had failed to hold the poor creature
when they first attempted to remove her on entering the
room. Directly they permitted her to return to her master
the frenzy vanished: she was perfectly quiet and contented
so long as they let her sit at his feet and look at him.
Sad as this was, the report of Miserrimus Dexter's condition was more melancholy still.' My patient is in a state of absolute imbecility "-those
were the words in the doctor's letter; and the gardener's
simple narrative confirmed them as the truest words that
could have been used. He was utterly unconscious of poor
Ariel's devotion to him —he did not even appear to know
that she was present in the room. For hours/ together he
remained in a state of utter lethargy in his chair. He showed
an animal interest in his meals, and a greedy animal enjoyment of eating and drinking as much as he could get-and
that was all. "This morning," the honest gardener said to
me at parting, "we thought he seemed to wake up a bit.
Looked about him, you know, and made queer signs with his
hands. I couldn't make out what he meant; no more could
the doctor. She knew, poor thing-she did. Went and got
him his harp, and put his hand up to it. Lord bless you!
no use. He couldn't play no more than I can. Twanged at
it anyhow, and grinned and gabbled to himself. No: he'll
never come right again. Any person can see that, without
the doctor to help'em. Enjoys his meals, as I told you;
and that's all. It would be the best thing that could happen
if it would please God to take him. There's no more to be
said. I wish you good-morning, ma'am."
He went away with the tears in his eyes; and he left me,
I own it, with the tears in mine.
An hour.later there came some news which revived me.
I received a telegram from Mr. Playmore, expressed in these
welcome words: "Obliged to go to London by to-night's
mail train. Expect me to breakfast to-morrow morning."
The appearance of the lawyer at our breakfast-table duly
followed the appearance of his telegram. His first words



THE LAW AND THE LADY.              309
cheered me. To my infinite surprise and relief, he was far
from sharing the despondent view which I took of my position.
"I don't deny," he said, " that there are some serious obstacles in your way. But I should never have called here
before attending to my professional business in London if Mr.
Benjamin's notes had not produced a very strong impression
on my mind. For the first time, as Ithink, you really have
a prospect of success. For the first time, I feel justified in
offering (under certain restrictions) to help you. That miserable wretch, in the collapse of his intelligence, has done
what he would never have done in the possession of his
sense and his cunning-he has let us see the first precious
glimmerings of the light of truth."
"Are you sure it is the truth?" I asked.
" In two important particulars," he answered, "I know it
to be the truth. Your idea about him is the right one. His
memory (as you suppose) was the least injured of his faculties, and was the last to give way under the strain of trying
to tell that story. I believe his memory to have been speaking to you (unconsciously to himself) in all that he said
from the moment when the first refeience to'the letter' escaped him to the end."
"'But what does the reference to the letter mean?" I
asked. " For my part, I am entirely in the dark about it."
"So am I," he answered, fiankly.." The chief one among
the obstacles which I mentioned just now is the obstacle
presented by that same' letter.' The late Mrs. Eustace must
have been connected with it in some way, or Dexter would
never have spoken of it as'a dagger in his heart;' Dexter
would never have coupled her name with the words which
describe the tearing up of the letter and the throwing of it
away. I can arrive with some certainty, at this result, and
I'can get no farther. I have no more idea than you have of
who wrote the letter, or of what was written in it. If we
are ever to make that discovery-probably the most important discovery of all-we must dispatch our first inquiries a
distance of three thousand miles. In plain English, my dear
lady, we must send to America."
This, naturally enough, took me completely by surprise.
I waited eagerly to hear why we were to send to America.
"It rests with you," he proceeded," when you hear what
I have to tell you, to say whether you will go to the expense
02



3910           THE LAWT AND THE LADY..
of sending a man to New York, or not. I can find the right
man for the purpose; and I estimate the expense (including
a telegram)-"
"Never mind the expense!" I interposed, losing all patience
with the eminently Scotch view of the case which put my
purse in the first place of importance. "I don't care fbr the
expense; I want to know what you have discovered."
He smiled. "She doesn't care for the expense," he said to
himself, pleasantly. "How like a woman!"
I might have retorted, "He thinks of the expense before
he thinks of any thing else. How like a Scotchman!" As it
was, I was too anxious to be witty. I only drummed impatiently with my fingers on the table, and said, "Tell me!
tell me!"
He took out the fair copy from Benjamin's note-book which
I had sent to him, and showed me these among Dexter's closinc words: "What about the letter? Burn it now. No fire
in the grate. No matches in the box. House topsy-turvy.
Servants all gone."
"Do you really understand what those words mean?" I,asked.
"I look back into my own experience," he answered,': and
I understand perfectly what the words mean."
"*And can you make me understand them too?"
"Easily. In those incomprehensible sentences Dexter's
memory has correctly recalled certain facts. I have only to
tell you the facts, and you will be as wise as I am. At the
time of the Trial, your husband surprised and distressed me
by insisting on the instant dismissal of all the household
servants at Gleninch. I was instructed to pay them a quarter's wages -in advance, to give them the excellent written
characters which their good conduct thoroughly deserved,
and to see the house clear of them at an hour's notice, Eustace's motive for this summary proceeding was much the
same motive which animated his conduct toward you.'If
I am ever to return to Gleninch,' he said,'I can not face my
honest servants after the infamy of having stood my trial
for murder.' There was his reason. Nothing that I could
say to him, poor fellow, shook his resolution. I dismissed
the servants accordingly. At an hour's notice, they quitted
the house, leaving their work for the day all undone. The
only persons placed in charge of Gleninch were persons who



THE LAW AND THE LADY.             311
lived on the outskirts of the park-that is to say, the lodgekeeper and his wife and daughter. On the last day of the
Trial I instructed the daughter to do her best to make the
rooms tidy. She was a good girl enough, but she had no
experience as a housemaid: it would never enter her head
to lay the bedroom fires ready for lighting, or to replenish
the empty match-boxes. Those chance words that dropped
fiom Dexter would, no doubt, exactly describe the state of
his room when he returned to Gleninch, with the prisoner
and his mother, fiom Edinburgh. That he tore up the mysterious letter in his bedroom, and (finding no means immediately at hand for burninc it) that he threw the fiagments into
the empty grate, or into the waste-paper basket, seems to be
the most reasonable conclusion that we can draw fiom what
wve know. In any case, he would not have much time to
think about it. -Every thing was done in a hurry on that
day. Eustace and his mother, accompanied by Dexter, left
for England the same evening by the night train. I myself
locked up the house, and gave the keys to the lodge-keeper.
It was understood that he was to look after the preservation
of the reception-rooms on the ground-floor; and that his wife
and daughter were to perform the same service between
them in the rooms up-stairs. On receiving your letter, I
drove at once to Gleninch to question the old woman on the
subject of the bedrooms, and of Dexter's room especially.
She remembered the time when the house was shut up by
associating it with the time when she was confined to her
bed by an attack-of sciatica. She had not crossed the lodge
door, she was sure, for at least a week (if not longer) after
Gleninch had been left in charge of her husband and herself.
Whatever was done in the way of keeping the bedrooms
aired and tidy during her illness was done by her daughter.
She, and she only, must have disposed of any letter which
might have been lying about in Dexter's room. Not a vestige of torn paper, as I can myself certify, is to be discovered
in any part of the room now. Where did the girl find the
fiagments of the letter? and what did she do with them?
Those are the questions (if you approve of it) which we must
send three thousand miles away to ask-for this sufficient
reason, that the lodge-keeper's daughter was married more
than a year since, and that she is settled with her husband in
business at New York. It rests with you to decide what is



312            THE LAW AND TIHE LADY.
to be done. Don't let me mislead you with false hopes!
Don't let me tempt you to throw away your money! Even
if this woman does remember what she.did with the torn
paper, the chances, at this distance of time, are enormously
against our ever recovering a single morsel of it. Be in no
haste to decide. I have my work to do in the city-I can
give you the whole day to think it over."
"Send the man to New York by the next steamer," I said.
"There is my decision, Mr. Playmore, without keeping you
waiting for it!"
He shook his head, in grave disapproval of my impetuosity.
In my former interview with him we -had never once touched
on the question of money. I was now, for the first time, to
make acquaintance with Mir. Playmore on the purely Scotch
side of his character.
"Why, you don't even know what it will cost you!" he
exclaimed,taking out his pocket-book with the air of a man
who was equally startled and scandalized. "Wait till I tot
it np," he said," inEnglish and American money."
"I can't wait! I want to make more discoveries!"
He took no notice of my interruption; he went on impenetrably with his calculations.
"The man will go second-class, and will take a returnticket. Very well. His ticket includes his food; and (being, thank God, a teetotaler) he won't waste your money in
buying liquor on board. Arrived at New York, he will go
to a cheap German house, where he will, as I am credibly informed, be boarded and lodged at the rate —"
By this time (my patience being completely worn out) I
had taken my check-book from the table-drawer, had. signed
my name, and- had handed the blank check across the table
to my legal adviser.
"Fill it in with whatever the man wants," I said. "And
for Heaven's sake letu s get back to Dexter!"
Mr. Playmore fell back in his chair, and lifted his hands and
eyes to the ceiling. I was not in the least impressed by that
solemn appeal to the unseen powers of arithmetic.and money.
I insisted positively on being fed with more information.
"Listen to this," I went on, reading from Benjamin's notes.
"What did Dexter mean when he said,' Number Nine, Caldershaws. Ask forDandie. You sha'n't have the Diary. A
secret in your ear. The Diary will hlang him?' How canme



TIIE LAW AND THE LADY.             313
Dexter to know what was in my husband's Diary?  And
what does he mean by' Number Nine, Calderlshaws,' and the
rest of it? Facts again?"
" Facts again!" Mr. Playmore answered, " muddled up together, as you may say - but positive facts for all that.
Caldershaws, you must know, is one of the most disreputable districts in Edinburgh. One of my clerks (whom I am
in the habit of employing confidentially) volunteered to inquire for'Dandie' at' Number Nine.' It was a ticklish business in every way; and my man wisely took a person with
him who was known in the neighborhood.'Number Nine'
turned out to be (ostensibly) a shop for the sale of rags and
old iron; and'Dandie' was suspected of trading now and
then, additionally, as a receiver of stolen goods. Thanks to
the influence of his companion, backed by a bank-note (which
can be repaid, by the way, out of the fund for the American
expenses), my clerk succeeded in making the fellow speak.
Not to trouble you with needless details, the result in substance was this: A fortnight or more before the dateof
Mrs. Eustace's death,'Dandie' made two keys from wax
models'supplied to him by a new customer. The mystery
observed in the matter by the agent who managed it excited Dandie's distrust. He had the man privately watched
before he delivered the keys; and he ended in discovering
that his customer was-Miserrimus Dexter. Wait a little!
I have not done yet. Add to this information Dexter's incomprehensible knowledge of the contents of your husband's
Diary, and the product is-that the wax models sent to the
old-iron shop in Caldershaws were models taken by theft
fiom the key of the Diary and the key of the table-drawer
in which it was kept. I have my own idea of the revelations
that are still to come if this matter is properly followed up.
Never mind going into that at present. Dexter (I tell you
again) is answerable for the late Mris. Eustace's death. Hoow
lhe is answerable I believe you are in a fair way of finding
out. And, more than that, I say now, what I could not venture to say before-it is a duty toward Justice, as well as a
duty toward your husband, to bring the truth to light. As
for the difficulties to be encountered, I don't think they need
daunt you. The greatest difficulties give way in the end,
when they are attacked by the united alliance of patience,
resolution-and economy."



318            TIHE LAWT AND. TIE LADY.
your hopeless project —then make up your mind to face the
result. Set Eustace's prejudices at defiance in this particular, and you lose your hold on his gratitude, his penitence,
and his love —you will, in my belief, never see him again.
" I express myself strongly, in your own interests, my dear',
and for your own sake. When you reply, write a few lines
to Eustace, inclosed in your letter to me.."As for the date of our departure, it is still impossible for
me to give you any definite information. Eustace recovers
very slowly; the doctor has not yet allowed him to leave his
bed; and when we do travel we must journey by easy
stages. It will be at least six weeks, at the earliest, before
we can hope to be back again in dear Old England.
"Affectionately yours,
" CATHERINE MACALLAN."
I laid down the letter, and did my best (vainly enough for
some time) to compose my spirits. To understand the position in "which I now found myself, it is only necessary to remember one circumstance: the messenger to whom we had
committed our inquiries was at that moment crossing the
Atlantic on his way to New York.
What was to be done?
I hesitated. Shocking as it may seem to some people, I
hesitated. There was really no need to hurry my decision.
I had the whole day before me.
I went out and took a wretched, lonely walk, and turned
the matter over in my mind. I came home again, and turned
the matter over once more by the fireside. To offend and
repel my darling when he was returning to me, penitently
returning of his own free will, was what no woman in my
position, and feeling as I did, could under any earthly circumstances have brought herself to do. And yet, on the
other hand, how in Heaven's name could I give up my grand
enterprise at the very time when even wise and prudent MIr.
Playmore saw such a prospect of succeeding in it that.he had
actually volunteered to help me? Placed between those two
cruel alternatives, which could I choose? Think of your
own frailties, and have some mercy on mine. I turned my
back on both the alternatives. Those two agreeable fiends,
Prevarication and Deceit, took me, as it were, softly by the
hand: "Don't commit yourself either way, my dear," they



THE LAU AND THE LADY.              319
said,.in. their most persuasive manner. "Write just enough
to compose your mother-in-law and to satisfy your husband.
You have got time before you. Wait and see if Time doesn't
stand your firiend, and get you out of the difficulty."
Infamous advice! And yet I took it-I, who had been
well broucht up, and who ought to have known better. You
who read this shameful confession would have known better,
I am sure. You are not included, in the Prayer-book category, among the " miserable. sinners."
Well! well! let me have virtue enough to tell the truth,
In writing to my mother-in-law, I informed her that it had
been found necessary to remove Mliserrimus Dexter to an
asylum-and I left her to draw her own conclusions fiom
that fact, unenlightened by so much as one word of additional information. In the same way, I told my husband a part
of the truth, and no more. I said I forgave him with all my
heart —and I did! I said he had only to come to me, and I
would receive him with open arms-and so I would! As
for the rest, let me say with Hamlet-" The rest is silence."
Having dispatched my unworthy letters, I found myself
growing restless, and feeling the want of a change. It would
be necessary to wait at least eight or nine days before we
could hope to hear by telegraph from New York. I bade
farewell for a time to my dear and admirable Benjamin, and
betook myself to my old home in the North, at the vicarage
of my uncle Starkweather. My journey to Spain to nurse
Eustace had made my peace with my worthy relatives; we
had exchanged friendly letters; and I had promised to be
their guest as soon- as it was possible for me to leave London.
I passed a quiet and (all things considered) a happy time
among the old scenes. I visited once more the bank by the
river-side, where Eustace and I had first met. I walked
again on the lawn and loitered through the shrubbery-those
favorite haunts in which we had so often talked over our
troubles, and so often forgotten them in a kiss. How sadly
and strangely had our lUves been parted since that time!
How uncertain still was the fortune which the fuiture had in
store for us!
The associations amid which I was now living had their
softefling effect on my heart, their elevating influence over
my mind. I reproached mnyself, bitterly reproached myself,
for not having written more fully and fiankly to Eustace.



320            THE LAW AND TIE LADY.
WVhy had I hesitated to sacrifice to him my hopes and my
interests in the coming investigation? He had not hesitated,
poor fellow —his first thought was the thought of his wife!
I had passed a fortnight with my uncle and aunt befbre I
heard again from Mr. Playmore.  When a letter from himn
arrived at last, it disappointed me indescribably. A telegram from our messenger infdrmed us that the lodge-keeper's
daughter and her husband had left New York, and that he
was still in search of a trace of them.
There.was nothing to be done but to wait as patiently as
we could, on the chance of hearing better news. I remained
in the North, by Mr. Playmore's advice, so as to be within
an easy journey to Edinburgh —in case it might be necessary
for me to consult himn personally.  Three more weeks; of
weary expectation passed before a second letter reached me.
This time it was impossible to say whether the news were
good or bad. It might have been either-it was simply bewildering. Even Mr. Playmore himself was taken by surprise. These were the last wonderful words —limited of
course by considerations of economy-which reached us (by
telegram) fiom our agent in America:
"Open the dust-heap at Gleninch."
CHAPTER XLIII.
AT LAST!
MY letter from Mr. Playmore, inclosing the agent's extraordinary telegram, was not inspired by the sanguine view of
our prospects which he had expressed to me when we met at
Benjamin's house.
"If the telegram mean any thing," he wrote, "it means
that the fragments of the torn letter have been cast into the
housemaid's bucket (along with the dust, the ashes, and the
rest of the litter in the room), and have been emptied on the
dust-heap at Gleninch. Since this was done, the accumulated
refuse collected fiom the periodical cleansings of the house,
during a term of nearly three years —including, of course,
the ashes from the fires kept burning, for the greater part of
the year, in the library and the picture-gallery-have been
poured upon the heap, and have buried the precious morsels



THE LAWV- AND THE LADY.            321
of paper deeper and deeper, day by day. Even if we have a
fair chance of finding these fiagments, what hope can we
feel, at this distance of time, of recoveling them with the
writing in a state of preservation? I shall be glad to hear,
by return of post if possible, how the matter strikes you.
If you could make it convenient to consult with me personally in Edinburgh, we should save time, when time may be
of serious importance to us. While you are at Doctor Starkweather's you are within easy reach of this place. Please
think of it."
I thought of it seriously enough. The foremost question
which I had to consider was the question of my husband.
The departure of the mother and son firom Spain had been
so long delayed, by the surgeon's orders, that the travelers
had only advanced on their homeward journey as far as Bordeaux, when I had last heard from Mrs. Macallan three or
four days since. Allowing for an interval of repose at Bordeaux, and for the slow rate at which they would be compelled to move afterward, I might still expect them to arrive
in England some time before a letter from the agent in America could reach Mr. Playmore. How, in this position of affairs,
I could contrive to join the lawyer in Edinburgh, after meeting my husband in London, it was not easy to see. The wise
and the right way, as I thought, was to tell Mr. Playmore
frankly that I was not mistress of my own movements, and
that he had better address his next letter to me at Benjamin's
house.
Writing to my legal adviser in this sense, I had a word
of my own to add on the subject of the torn letter.
In the last years of my father's life I had traveled with
him in Italy, and I had seen in the Museum at Naples the
wonderful relics of a by-gone time discovered among the ruins
of Pompeii.  By way of encouraging Mr11. Playmore, I now
reminded him that the eruption which had overwhelmed the
town had preserved, for more than sixteen hundred years,
such perishable things as the straw in which pottery had
been packed; -the paintings on house walls; the dresses
worn by the inhabitants; and (most noticeable of all, in our
case) a piece of ancient paper, still attached to the volcanic
ashes which had fallen over it. - If these discoveries had
been made after a lapse of sixteen centuries, under a layer
of dust and ashes on a large scale, surely- we might hope to



THE LAW~ AND THE LADY.             323
You will understand how he feels, in his present state of
nervous depression, when I tell you that I should never have
ventured on asking you to join him here, if your letter had
not informed me that your visits to Dexter were at an end.
Would you believe it?-his horror of any thing which recalls
our past troubles is still so vivid that he has actually asked
me to giv ve my consent to selling Gleninch!"
So Eustace's mother wrote of him. But she had not trusted entirely to her own powers of persuasion. A slip of paper
was inclosed in her letter, containing these two lines, traced
in pencil-oh, so feebly and so wearily!-by my poor darling
himself:
"I am too weak to travel any farther, Valeria. Will you
come to me and forgive me?" A few pencil-marks followed;
but they were illegible. The writing of those two short sentences had exhausted him.
It is not saying much for myself, I know-but, having confessed it when I was wrong, let me at:least record it when I
did what was right-I decided instantly on giving up all
further connection with the recovery of the torn letter. If
Eustace asked me the question, I was resolved to be able to
answer truly: "I have made the sacrifice that assures your
tranquillity. When resignation was hardest, I have humbled
my obstinate spirit, and I have given waiy for my husband's
sake."
There was half an hour to spare before I left the vicarage
for the railway station. In that interval I wrote again to
Mr. Playmore- telling him plainly what my position was,
and withdrawing, at once and forever, from all share in investigating the mystery which lay hidden under the dustheap at Gleninch.
CHAPTERL XLIV.
OUR NEW  HONEYMOON.
IT is not to be disguised or denied that my spirits were
depressed on my journey to London.
To resign the one cherished purpose of my life, when I had
suffered so much in pursuing it, and when I thad (to all appearance) so neatly reached the realization of'my hopes, was



324            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
putting to a hard trial a woman's fortitude and a woipan's
sense of duty. Still, even if the opportunity had been offered to me, I would not have recalled my letter to Mr. Playmore. "It is done, and well done," I said to myself; "and
I have only to wait a day to be reconciled to it-when I give
ny husband my first kiss."
I had planned and hoped to reach London in time to start
for Paris by the night-mail. But the train was twice delayed on the long journey firom the North; and there was
no help for it but to sleep at Benjamin's villa, and to defer
my departure until the morning.
It was, of course, impossible for me to warn my old friend
of the change in my plans. My arrival took him by. surprise. I found him alone in his library, with a wonderful illuminIation of lamhps and candles, absorbed over some morsels of torn paper scattered on the table before him.
"What in the world are you about?" I asked.
Benjamin blushed -I was going to say, like a young girl;
but young girls have given up blushing in these latter days
of the age we live in.
4" Oh, nothing, nothing!" he said, confusedly. "Don't notice it."
He stretched out his hand to brush the morsels of paper
off the table. Those morsels raised a sudden suspicion in
my mind. I stopped him.
"You have heard from Mrh. Playmore!" I said. "Tell me
the truth, Benjamin. Yes or No?"
Benjamin blushed a shade deeper, and answered "Yes."
"' Where is the letter?"
"I mustn't show it to you, Valeria."
This (need I say it?) made me determined to see the letter.
My best way of persuading Benjamin to show it to me was
to tell him of the sacrifice that I had made to my husband's
wishes. "I have no further voice in' the matter," I added,
when I had done. "It now rests entirely with Mr. Playmore to go on or to give up; and this is my last opportunity
of discovering what he really thinks about it. Don't I deserve some little indulgence? Have I no claim to look at
the letter?"
Benjamin was too much surprised, and too much pleased
with me, when he heard what had happened, to be able to
resist my entreaties. He gave me the letter.



THE LAW AND THE LADY.            329
Somebody put my money in my bag, and politely led me
out to the little hired carriage which was waiting for me at
the door. I remember nothing distinctly until I opened the
letter on my way home. The first words told me that the
dust-heap had been examined, and that the fragments of the
torn letter had been found.
CHAPTER XLV.
THE DUST-HEAP DISTURBED.
MY head turned giddy. I was obliged to wait and let
my overpowering agitation subside, before I could read any
molre.
Looking at the letter again, after an interval, my eyes fell
accidentally on a sentence near the end, which surprised and
startled -me.
I stopped the driver of the carriage, at the entrance to the
street in which our lodgings were situated, and told him to
take me to the beautiful park of Paris-the famous Bois de
Boulogne. My object was to gain time enough, in this way,
to read the letter carefillly through by myself, and to ascertain whether I ought or ought not to keep the receipt of it
a secret before I confronted my husband and his mother at
home.
This precaution taken, I read the narrative which my good
Benjamin had so wisely and so thoughtfully written for me.
Treating the various incidents methodically, he began with
the Report which had arrived, in due course of mail, from our
agent in America.
Our man had successfully traced the lodge-keeper's daughter and her husband to a small town in one of the Western
States. Mr. Playmore's letter of introduction at once secured him a cordial reception from the married pair, and a
patient hearing when he stated the object of his voyage
across the Atlantic.
His first questions led to no very encouraging results. The
woman was confused and surprised, and was apparently quite
unable to exert her memory to any useful purpose. Fortunately, her husband proved to be a very intelligent man. He
took the agent privately aside, and said to him, "I under



332           THE LAW AND THE LADY.
day. And there, hidden deep somewhere in the mound, the
fragments of the letter must be.
Such were the lawyer's conclusions. He had written immediately to communicate them to Benjamin. And, thereupon, what had Benjamin done?
After having tried his powers of reconstruction on his own
correspondence, the prospect of experimenting on the mysterious letter itself had proved to be a temptation too powerful for the old man to resist. "I almost fancy, my dear,
this business of yours has bewitched me," he' wrote. "You
see I have the misfortune to be an idle man. I have time to
spare and money to spare. And the end:-of it is that I am
here at Gleninch, engaged on my own sole responsibility
(with good Mr. Playmore's permission) in searching the dustheap!"
-Benjamin's description of his first view of the field of
action at Gleninch followed these characteristic lines of
apology.
I passed over the description without ceremony. My remembrance of the scene was too vivid to require any prompting of that sort. I saw again, in the dim evening light, the
unsightly mound which had so strangely attracted my attention at Gleninch. I heard again the words in which Mr.
Playmore had explained to me the custom of the dust-heap
in Scotch country-houses. What had Benjamin and Mr.
Playmore done? What had Benjamin and Mr. Playmore
found? For me, the true interest of the narrative was there
-and to that portion of it I eagerly turned next.
They had proceeded methodically, of course, with one eye
on the pounds, shillings, and pence, and the other on the object in view. In Benjamin, the lawyer had found what he
had not met with in me-a sympathetic mind, alive to the
value of " an abstract of the expenses," and conscious of that
most remunerative of human virtues, the virtue of economy.
At so much a week, they had engaged men to dig into the
mound and to sift the ashes. At so much a week, they had
hired a tent to shelter the open dust-heap from wind and
weather. At so much a week, they had engaged the services of a young man (personally known to Benjamin), who
was employed in a laboratory under a professor of chemistry, and who had distinguished himself by his skillful manipulation of paper in a recent case of forgery on a well-known



THE LAW AND THE LADY.             3 33
London firm. Armed with these preparations, they had begun
the work; Benjamin and the young chemist living at Gleninch, and taking it in turns to superintend the proceedings.
Three days of labor with the spade and the sieve produced
no results of the slightest importance. However, the matter
was in the hands of two quietly determined men. They declined to be discouraged. They went on.
On the fourth day the first morsels of paper were found.
Upon examination, they proved to be the fragments of a
tradesman's prospectus. Nothing dismayed, Benjamin and
the young chemist still persevered. At the end of the day's
work more pieces of paper were turned up. These proved
to be covered with written characters. Mr. Playmore (arriving at Gleninch, as usual, every evening on the conclusion
of his labors in the law) was consulted as to the handwriting. After careful examination, he declared that the mutilated portions of sentences submitted to him had been written, beyond all doubt, by Eustace Macallan's first wife!
This discovery aroused the enthusiasm of the searchers to
fever height.
Spades and sieves were from that moment forbidden utensils. However unpleasant the task might be, hands alone
were used in the further examination of the mound. The
first and foremost necessity was to place the morsels of paper
(in flat card-board boxes prepared for the purpose) in their
order as they were found. Night came; the laborers were
dismissed; Benjamin and his two colleagues worked on by
lamp-light.' The morsels of paper were now turned up by
dozens, instead of by ones add twos. For a while the search
prospered in this way; and then the morsels appeared no
more. Had they all been recovered? or would renewed
hand-digging yield more yet? The next light layers of rubbish were carefully' removed-and the grand discovery of
the day followed. There (upside down) was the gum-bottle-which the lodge-keeper's daughter had spoken of. And,
more precious still, there, under it, were more fragments of
written paper, all stuck together in a little lump, by the last
drippings from the gum-bottle dropping upon them as they
lay on the dust-heap!
The scene now shifted to the interior of the house. When
the searchers next assembled they met at the great table in
the library at Gleninch.
P2



334            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
Benjamin's experience with the "Puzzles" which he had
put together in the days of his boyhood proved to be:of some
use to his companions. The fragments accidentally stuck
together would, in all probability, be found to fit each other,
and would certainly (in any case) be the easiest friagments
to reconstruct as a centre to start fiom.
The delicate business of separating these pieces of n paper,
and of preserving them in the order in which they had adhered to each other, was assigned to the practiced fingers of
the chemist. But the difficulties of his task did not end here.
The writing was (as usual in letters) traced on both sides of
the paper, and it could only be preserved for the purpose of
reconstruction by splitting each morsel into two —so as artificially to make a blank side, on which could be spread thefine cement used for reuniting the fragments in their original form.
To Mr. Playmore and Benjamin -the prospect of successfully putting the letter together, underithese disadvantages,
seemed to be almost hopeless. Their skilled colleague sbon
satisfied them that they were wrong.
He drew their attention to the thickness of the paper —
note-paper of the strongest and best quality —on which
the writing was traced. It was of more than twice the substance of the last paper on which he had operated, whenw he
was engaged in the forgery case; and it was, on that account,
comparatively easy for him (aided by the mechanical appliances which he had brought from London) to split the morsels of the torn paper, within a given space of time which
might permit them to begin the reconstructioin of the letter
that night.
With these explanations, he quietly devoted himself to his
work. While Benjamin and the lawyer were still poring
over the scattered morsels of the letter which had been first
discovered, and trying to piece them together again, the
chemist had divided the greater part of the fiagments specially- confided to him into two halves each; and had correctly put together some five or six sentences of the letter on the
smooth sheet of cardboard prepared for that purpose.
They looked eagerly at the reconstructed writing so
far.
It was correctly done: the sense was perfect. The first
result gained by examination was remarkable enough to re



THE LAW AND THE LADY.              335
ward them for all their exertions. The language used;plainly identified the person to whom the late Mrs. Eustace had
addressed her letter.
That person was-my.husband.
And the letter thus addressed-if the plainest circumstantial evidence could be-trusted-was identical with the letter
which Miserrimus Dexter had suppressed until the Trial was
over, and had then destroyed by tearing it up.
These were the discoveries that had been made. at the
time when Benjamin wrote to me. He had been on the
point of posting his letter, when Mr. Playmore had suggested that he should keep it by him for a few days longer, on
the chance of having more still to tell me.
" We are indebted to her for these results," the lawyer
had said. "But for her resolution, and her influence over
Miserrimus Dexter, we should never have discovered what
the dust-heap was hiding from us-,we should never have
seen so much as a glimmering of the truth. She has the first
claim to the fillest information. Let her have it."
The letter had been accordingly kept back for three days.
That interval being at an end, it was hurriedly resumed and
concluded in terms which indescribably alarmed me.
"The chemist is advancing rapidly with his part of the
work" (Benjamin wrote); " and I have succeeded in putting
together a separate portion of the torn writing which makes
sense. Comparison of what he has accomplished with what
I have accomplished has led-to startling conclusions. Unless Mr. Playmore and I are entirely wrong (and God grant
we may be so!), there is a serious necessity for your keeping
the reconstruction of the letter strictly secret from every
body about you. The disclosures suggested by what has
come to light are so heart-rending and so dreadful that I
can not'bring myself to write about them until I am absolutely obliged to do so. Please forgive me for disturbing
you with this news. We are bound, sooner or later, to consult with you in the matter; and we think it right to prepare your mind for what may be to come."
To this there was added a postscript in Mr. Playmore's
handwriting:
"Pray observe strictly the caution which Mr. Benjamin
impresses on you. And bear this in mind, as a warning from
mze: If we succeed in reconstructing the entire letter, the



336            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
last person living who ought (in my opinion) to be allowed
to see it is-your husband."
CHAPTER XLVI
THE CRISIS DEFERRED.
"TAKE care, Valeria!" said Mrs. Macallan. "I ask you
no questions; I only caution you for your own sake. Eustace has noticed what I have noticed-Eustace has seen a
change in you. Take care!"
So my mother-in-law spoke to me later in the day,when
we happened to be alone. I had done my best to conceal
all traces of the effect produced on me by the'strange and
terrible news from Gleninch. But who could read what I
had read, who could feel what I now felt, and still maintain
an undisturbed serenity of look and manner? If I had been
the vilest hypocrite living, I doubt even then if my face
could have kept my secret while my mind was full of Benjamin's letter.
Having spoken her word of caution, Mrs. Macallan made
no further advance to me. I dare say she was right. Still,
it seemed hard to be left, without a word of advice or of
sympathy, to decide for myself what it. was my duty to my
husband to'do next.
To show him Benjamin's narrative, in his state of health,
and in the face of the warning' addressed to me, was simply
out of the question. At the same time, it was equally impossible, after I had already betrayed myself, to keep him
entirely in the dark. I thought over it anxiously in the
night. When the morning came, I decided to appeal to my
hlusband's confidence in me.
I went straight to the point in these terms:
"Eustace, your mother said yesterday that you noticed a
change in me when I came back from my drive. Is she
right?"
"Quite right, Valeria," he, answered-speaking in lower
tones than usual, and not looking at me.
"We have no concealments from each other now," I answered. "I ought to tell you, and do tell you, that I found
a letter from England waiting at the banker's which has



THE LAW AND THE LAD`Y.            339
ter was completed. Exeepting certain instances, in which
the morsels of the torn paper had been irretrievably lost -
and in which it had been. necessary to complete the sense in
harmony with the writer's intention - the whole letter had
been put together; and the promised copy of it was forwarded to me in Paris.
Before you, too, read that dreadful letter, do me one favor.
Let me briefly remind you of the circumstances under which
Eustace Macallan married his first wife.
Remember that the poor creature fell in love with him
without awakening any corresponding affection on his side.
Remember that he separated himself from her, and.did all he
could to avoid her, when he found this out. Remember that
she presented herself at his residence in London without a
word of warning; that he did his best to save her reputation; that he failed, through no fault of his own; and that
he ended, rashly ended in a moment of despair, by marrying
her, to silence the scandal that must otherwise have blighted
her life as a woman for the rest of her days, Bear all this
in mind (it is the sworn testimony of respectable witnesses);
and pray do not forget-however foolishly and blamably he
may have written about her in the secret pages of his Diary
-that he was proved to have done his best.to conceal fi'om
his wife the aversion which the poor soul inspired in him;
and that he was (in the opinion of those who could best
judge him) at least a courteous and a considerate husband,
if he could be no more.
And now take the letter. It asks but one favor of you:
-it asks to be read by the light of Christ's teaching —" Judge
not, that ye be not judged."
CHAPTER XLVII.
THE WIFEE'S CONFESSION.
"GLENINCH, October 19, 18-.
M" MY HUSBANI), —
"I have something very painful to tell you about one of
your oldest friends.
"You have never encouraged me to come. to.you with
any confidences of mine. If you had allowed me to be as



THE LAW AND THE LADY.            345
"Nobody suspects any thing. Strange to say, the pain
has left me; I have evidently taken too little of the poison.
I must open the bottle which contains the larger quantity.
Fortunately, you are not near me-my resolution to die, or,
rather, my loathing of life, remains as bitterly unaltered as
ever. To make sure of my courage, I have forbidden the
nurse to send for you. She has just gone down-stairs by my
orders. I am free to get the poison out of my dressing-case.
"Ten minutes to ten.
"I had just time to hide the bottle (after the nurse-had
left me) when you came into my room.
"I had another moment of weakness when I saw you. I
determined to give myself a last chance of life. That is to
say, I determined to offer you a last opportunity of treating
me kindly. I asked you to get me a cup of tea. If, in paying me this little attention; you only encouraged me by one
fond word or one fond look, I resolved not to take the-second
dose -of poison.
"You obeyed my wishes, but you were not kind. You
gave me my tea, Eustace, as if you were giving a drink to
your dog. And then you wondered in a languid way (thinking, I suppose, of Mrs. Beauly all the time), at my dropping
the cup in handing it back to you. I really could not help
it; my hand would tremble. In my place, your hand might
have trembled too-with the arsenic under the bedclothes.
You politely hoped, before you went away, that the tea would
do me good-and, oh God, you could not even look at me
when you said that! You looked at the broken bits of the
tea-cup.
"The instant you were out of the room I took the poison
-a double dose this time.
"I have a little request to make here, while I think of it.
"After removing the label from the bottle, and putting it
back, clean, in my dressing-case, it struck me that I had failed
to take the same precaution (in the early morning) with the
empty paper-packet, bearing on it the name of the other chemist. I threw it aside on the counterpane of the bed, among
some other loose papers. My ill-tempered nurse complained
of the litter, and crumpled them all up and put them away
somewhere. I hope the chemist will not suffer through my carelessness. Pray bear it in mind to say that he is not to blame.



34,6              THE LAW AND THE LADY.
"Dexter-something reminds me of Miserrimus Dexter.
He has put your Diary back again in the drawer, and he
presses me for an answer to his proposals. Has this false
wretch any conscience? If he has, even he will suffer-when
my death answers him.
"The nurse has been in my room  again.  I have sent her
away. I have told her I want to be alone.
"How is the time going?  I can not find my watch.  Is
the pain coming back again and paralyzing me? I don't feel
it keenly yet.
" It may come back, though, at any moment. I have still
to close my letter and to address it to you. And, besides, I
must save up my strength to hide it under the pillow, so that
nobody may find it until after my death.
" Farewell, my dear.  I wish I had been a prettier woman.
A more loving woman (toward you) I could not be. Even'now I dread the sight of your dear face. Even now, if I allowed myself the luxury of looking at you, I don't know that
you might not charm  me into confessing what I have done.
-before it is too late to save me.
"But you are not here.  Better as it is! better as it is!
"Once more, farewell!  Be happier than you have been
with me.  I love you, Eustace-I forgive you.  When you
have nothing else to think about, think sometimes, as kindly
as you can, of your poor, ugly
" SARA MACALLAN."'*
* Note by Mr. Playmore:
The lost words and phrases supplied in this concluding portion of the letter are so few in number that it is needless to mention them. The fragments
which were found accidentally stuck together by the gum, and which represent the part of the letter first completely reconstructed, begin at the phrase,
" I spoke of you shamefully, Eustace;" and end with the broken sentence,
"If, in paying me this little attention, you only encouraged me by one fond
word or one fond look, I resolved not to take —" With the assistance thus
afforded to us, the labor of putting together the concluding half of the letter
(dated " October 20 ") was trifling, compared with the almost insurmountable difficulties which we encountered in dealing with the scattered wreck of
the preceding pages.



348            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
The hour struck from the clock on the mantel-piece. It
was Eustace's time for paying me his morning visit in my
own little room. He might come in at any moment; he
might see the letter; he might snatch the letter out of my
hand. In a frenzy of terror and loathing, I caught up the
vile sheets of paper and threw them into the fire.
It was a fortunate thing that a copy only had been sent
to me. Ifsthe original letter had been in its place, I believe
I should have burned the original at that moment.
The last morsel of paper had been barely consumed by the
flames when the door opened, and Eustace came in.
He glanced at the fire. The black cinders of the burned
paper were still floating at the back of the grate.. Ie had
seen the letter brought to me at the breakfast-table. Did
he suspect what I had done? IIe said nothing-he stood
gravely looking into the fire. Then he advanced and fixed
his eyes on me. I suppose I was very pale. The first words
he spoke were words which asked me if I felt ill.
I was determined not to deceive him, even in the merest
trifle.
"I am feeling a little nervous, Eustace," I answered; " that
is all."
lie looked at me again, as if he expected me to say something more. I remained silent. He took a letter out of the
breast-pocket of his coat, and laid it on the table before me
-just where the Confession had lain before I destroyed it!
"I have had a letter too this morning," he said. "And
I, Valeria, have no secrets from you."
I uiderstood the reproach which my husband's last words
conveyed; but I made no attempt to answer him.
"Do you wish me to read it?" was all I said, pointing to
the envelope which he had laid on the table.
"I have already said that I have no secrets from you," he
repeated. "The envelope is open. See for yourself what is
inclosed in it."
I took out-not a letter, but a printed paragraph, cut from
a Scotch newspaper.
"Read it," said Eustace.
I read as follows:
" STRANGE DOINGS AT GLENINCH.-A romance in real life
seems to be in course of progress at Mr. Macallan's country



356            THE LAW AND THE LADY.
are of an age to think for themselves. Do you consent to
this, my dear? or would you prefer that Mr. Playmore should
see your husband, and act for you in the matter?"
I decided, without hesitation, to take the responsibility on
myself. Where the question of guiding Eustace's decision
was concerned, I considered my influence to be decidedly
superior to the influence of Mr. Playmore. My choice met
with Benjamin's full approval. He:arranged to write to
Edinburgh, and relieve the lawyer's anxieties by that day's
post.
The one last thing now left to be settled related to our
plans for returning to England. The doctors were the authorities on this subject. I promised to consult them about
it at their next visit to Eustace.
"Have you any thing more to say to me?" Benjamin inquired, as he opened his writing-case.
I thought of Miserrimus Dexter and Ariel; and I inquired
if- he had heard any news of them lately. My old friend
sighed, and warned me that I had touched on a painful subject.
"The best thing that can happen to that unhappy man is
likely to happen," he said. "The one change in him is a
change that threatens paralysis. You may hear of his death
before you get back to England."
" And Ariel?" I asked.
"Quite unaltered," Benjamin answered. "Perfectly happy so long as she is with' the Master.' From all I can hear
of her, poor soul, she doesn't reckon Dexter among mortal
beings. She laughs at the idea of his dying; and she waits
patiently, in the firm persuasion that he will recognize her
again."
Benjamin's news saddened and silenced me. I left him to
his letter
CHAPTER L.
THE LAST OF THE STORY.
IN ten days more we returned to England, accompanied
by Benjamin.
Mrs. Macallan's house in London offered us ample accom



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