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IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT.

A Novel.




IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. II.




LONDON:
RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON.
1874.

(_All rights reserved_.)






IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT.


A Novel.




IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. II.




LONDON:
RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON.
1874.

(_All rights reserved_.)






CONTENTS OF VOL. II.

CHAPTER
      I. THE EVE OF THE TRIAL.

      II. THE TRIAL.

     III. A BOTTLE OF BURGUNDY.

     IV. DR. DRAYTON'S SUSPICIONS.

      V. HIDE AND SEEK.

     VI. FLOWN.

    VII. GENERAL ST. GEORGE.

   VIII. CUPID AT PINCOTE.

     IX. AT THE VILLA PAMPHILI.

      X. BACK AGAIN AT PARK NEWTON.

     XI. MRS. MCDERMOTT WANTS HER MONEY.

    XII. FOOTSTEPS IN THE ROOM.

   XIII. THE SQUIRE'S TRIBULATION.













IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT.




CHAPTER I.
THE EVE OF THE TRIAL.


Within a week of Tom Bristow's first visit to Pincote, and his
introduction to the Copes, father and son, Mr. Cope, junior, found
himself, much to his disgust, fairly on his way to New York. He would
gladly have rebelled against the parental dictum in this matter, if he
had dared to do so; but he knew of old how worse than useless it would
be for him to offer the slightest opposition to his father's wishes.

"You will go and say goodbye to Miss Culpepper as a matter of
course," said Mr. Cope to him. "But don't grow too sentimental over
the parting. Do it in an easy, smiling way, as if you were merely
going out of town for a few days. Don't make any promises--don't talk
about the future--and, above all, don't say a word about marriage. Of
course, you will have to write to her occasionally while you are away.
Just a few lines, you know, to say how you are, and all that. No
mawkish silly love-nonsense, but a sensible, manly letter; and be
wisely reticent as to the date of your return. Very sorry, but you
don't know how much longer your business may detain you--you know the
sort of thing I mean."

When the idea had first entered Mr. Cope's mind that it would be an
excellent thing if he could only succeed in getting his son engaged to
Squire Culpepper's only child, it had not been without an ulterior eye
to the fortune which that young lady would one day call her own that
he had been induced to press forward the scheme to a successful issue.
By marrying Miss Culpepper, his son would be enabled to take up a
position in county society such as he could never hope to attain
either by his own merits, which were of the most moderate kind, or
from his father's money bags alone. But dearly as Mr. Cope loved
position, he loved money still better; and it was no part of his
programme that his son should marry a pauper, even though that pauper
could trace back her pedigree to the Conqueror. And yet, if the squire
went on speculating as madly as he was evidently doing now, it seemed
only too probable that pauperism, or something very much like it,
would be the result, as far as Miss Culpepper was concerned. Instead
of having a fortune of at least twenty thousand pounds, as she ought
to have, would she come in for as many pence when the old man died?
Mr. Cope groaned in spirit as he asked himself the question, and he
became more determined than ever to carry out his policy of waiting
and watching, before allowing the engagement of the young people to
reach a point that would render a subsequent rupture impossible
without open scandal--and scandal was a bugbear of which the banker
stood in extreme dread.

Fortunately, perhaps, for Mr. Cope's view, the feelings of neither
of the people chiefly concerned were very deeply interested. Edward
had obeyed his father in this as in everything else. He had known
Jane from a child, and he liked her because she was clever and
good-tempered. But she by no means realized his ideal of feminine
beauty. She was too slender, too slightly formed to meet with his
approval. "There's not enough of her," was the way he put it to
himself. Miss Moggs, the confectioner's daughter, with her ample
proportions and beaming smile, was far more to his taste. Equally to
his taste was the pastry dispensed by Miss Moggs's plump fingers, of
which he used to devour enormous quantities, seated on a three-legged
stool in front of the counter, while chatting in a free and easy way
about his horses and dogs, and the number of pigeons he had
slaughtered of late. And then it was so much easier to talk to Miss
Moggs than it was to talk to Jane. Miss Moggs looked up to him as to a
young magnifico, and listened to his oracular utterances with becoming
reverence and attention; but Jane, somehow, didn't seem to appreciate
him as he wished to be appreciated, and he never felt, quite sure that
she was not laughing at him in her sleeve.

"So you are going to leave us by the eight o'clock train to-morrow,
are you?" asked Jane, when he went to Pincote to say a few last words
of farewell. He had sat down by her side on the sofa, and had taken
her unresisting hand in his; a somewhat thin, cold little hand, that
returned his pressure very faintly. How different, as he could not
help saying to himself, from the warm, plump fingers of Matilda Moggs.

"Yes, I'm going by the morning train. Perhaps I shall never come back.
Perhaps I shall be drowned," he said, somewhat dolorously.

"Not you, Edward, dear. You will live to plague us all for many a year
to come. I wish I could do your business, and go instead of you."

"You don't mean to say that you would like to cross the Atlantic,
Jane?"

"I mean to say that there are few things in the world would please me
better. What a fresh and glorious experience it must be to one who has
never been far from home!"

"But think of the sea-sickness."

"Think of being out of sight of commonplace land for days and days
together. Think how delightful it must be to be rocked on the great
Atlantic rollers, and what a new and pleasant sensation it must be to
know that there is only a plank between yourself and the fishes, and
yet not to feel the least bit afraid."

Edward shuddered. "When you wake up in the middle of the night, and
hear the wind blowing hard, you will think of me, won't you?" he said.

"Of course I shall. And I shall wish I were by your side to enjoy it.
To be out in a gale on the Atlantic--that must indeed be glorious!"

Edward's fat cheeks became a shade paler, "Don't talk in that way,
Jane," he said. "One never can tell what may happen. I shall write to
you, of course, and all that; and you won't forget me while I'm away,
will you?"

"No, I shall not forget you, Edward; of that you may be quite sure."

Then he drew her towards him, and kissed her; and then, after a few
more words, he went away.

It was just the sort of parting that his father would have approved
of, he said to himself, as he drove down the avenue. No tears, no
sentimental nonsense, no fuss of any kind. Privately he felt somewhat
aggrieved that she had not taken the parting more to heart. "There
wasn't even a single tear in her eye," he said to himself. "She
doesn't half know how to appreciate a fellow."

He would perhaps have altered his opinion in some measure could he
have seen Jane half an hour later. She had locked herself in her
bedroom, and was crying bitterly. Why she was crying thus she
would have found it difficult to explain: in fact, she hardly knew
herself. It is possible that her tears were not altogether tears of
bitterness--that some other feeling than sorrow for her temporary
separation from Edward Cope was stirring the fountains of her heart.
She kept on upbraiding herself for her coldness and want of feeling,
and trying to persuade herself that she was deeply sorry, rather than
secretly--very secretly--glad to be relieved of the tedium of his
presence for several weeks to come. She knew how wrong it was of
her--it was almost wicked, she thought--to feel thus: but, underlying
all her tears, was a gleam of precious sunshine, of which she was
dimly conscious, although she would not acknowledge its presence even
to herself.

After a time her tears ceased to flow. She got up and bathed her eyes.
While thus occupied her maid knocked at the door.

Mr. Bristow was downstairs. He had brought some photographs for Miss
Culpepper to look at.

"Tell Mr. Bristow how sorry I am that I cannot see him to-day," said
Jane. "But my head aches so badly that I cannot possibly go down."
Then when the girl was gone, "I won't see him to-day," she added to
herself. "When Edward and I are married he will come and see us
sometimes, perhaps. Edward will always be glad to see him."

Hearing the front-door clash, she ran to the window and pulled aside a
corner of the blind. In a minute or two she saw Tom walking leisurely
down the avenue. Presently he paused, and turned, and began to scan
the house as if he knew that Jane were watching him. It was quite
impossible that he should see her, but for all that she shrank back,
with a blush and a shy little smile. But she did not loose her hold of
the blind; and presently she peeped again, and never moved her eyes
till Tom was lost to view.

Then she went downstairs into the drawing-room, and found there the
photographs which Tom had left for her inspection. There, too, lying
close by, was a glove which he had dropped and had omitted to pick up
again. "I will give it to him next time he comes," she said softly to
herself. Strange to relate, her next action was to press the glove to
her lips, after which she hid it away in the bosom of her dress. But
young ladies' memories are proverbially treacherous, and Jane's was no
exception to the rule. Tom Bristow's glove never found its way back
into his possession.

Jane Culpepper had drifted into her engagement with Edward Cope almost
without knowing how such a state of affairs had been brought about.
When her father first mentioned the matter to her, and told her that
Edward was fond of her, she laughed at the idea of Edward being fond
of anything but his horses and his gun. When, later on, the young
banker, in obedience to parental instructions, blundered through a
sort of declaration of love, she laughed again, but neither repulsed
nor encouraged him. She was quite heart-whole and fancy-free; but
certainly Mr. Cope, junior, bore only the faintest resemblance to the
vague hero of her girlish dreams--who would come riding one day out of
the enchanted Kingdom of Love, and, falling on his knees before her,
implore her to share his heart and fortune for evermore. To speak the
truth, there was no romance of any kind about Edward. He was
hopelessly prosaic: he was irredeemably commonplace; but they had
known each other from childhood, and she had a kindly regard for him,
arising from that very fact. So, pending the arrival of Prince
Charming, she did not altogether repulse him, but went on treating his
suit as a piece of pleasant absurdity which could never work itself
out to a serious issue either for herself or him. She took the alarm a
little when some whispers reached her that she would be asked, before
long, to fix a day for the wedding; but, latterly, even those whispers
had died away. Nobody seemed in a hurry to press the affair forward to
its legitimate conclusion: even Edward himself showed no impatience on
the point. So long as he could come and go at Pincote as he liked, and
hover about Jane, and squeeze her hand occasionally, and drive her out
once or twice a week behind his high-stepping bays, he seemed to want
nothing more. They were just the same to each other as they had been
when they were children, Jane said to herself--and why should they not
remain so?

But, of late, a slight change had come o'er the spirit of Miss
Culpepper's dream. New hopes, and thoughts, and fears, to which she
had hitherto been a stranger, began to nestle and flutter round her
heart, like love-birds building in spring. The thought of becoming the
wife of Edward Cope was fast becoming--nay, had already become,
utterly distasteful to her. She began to realize the fact that it is
impossible to keep on playing with fire without getting burnt. She had
allowed herself to drift into an engagement with a man for
whom she really cared nothing, thinking, probably, at the
time that for her no Prince Charming would ever come riding
out of the woods; and that, if it would please her father,
she might as well marry Edward Cope as any one else. But
behold! all at once Prince Charming _had_ come, and although, as yet,
he had not gone down on his knees and offered his hand and heart for
evermore, she felt that she could never love but him alone. She felt,
too, with a sort of dumb despair, that she had already given herself
away beyond recall--or, at least, had led the world to think that she
had so given herself away; and that she could not, with any show of
maidenly honour, reclaim a gift which she had let slip from her so
lightly and easily that she hardly knew herself when it was gone.


The eve of Lionel Dering's trial came at last. The Duxley assizes had
opened on the previous Thursday. All the minor cases had been got
through by Saturday night, and one of the two judges had already gone
forward to the next town. The Park Newton murder case had been left
purposely till Monday, and by those who were supposed to know best, it
was considered not unlikely that trial, verdict, and sentence would
all be got through in the course of one sitting.

The celebrated Mr. Tressil, who had been specially engaged for the
defence, found it impossible to get down to Duxley before the five
o'clock train on Sunday afternoon. He was met on the platform by Mr.
Hoskyns and Mr. Bristow. His junior in the case, Mr. Little, was to
meet him by appointment at his rooms later on. Tom was introduced to
Mr. Tressil by Hoskyns as a particular friend of Mr. Dering's, and the
three gentlemen at once drove to the prison. Mr. Tressil had gone
carefully through his brief as he came down in the train. The
information conveyed therein was so ample and complete that it was
more as a matter of form than to serve any real purpose that he went
to see his client. The interview was a very brief one. The few
questions Mr. Tressil had to ask were readily answered, but it was
quite evident that there was no fresh point to be elicited. Then Mr.
Tressil went away, accompanied by Mr. Hoskyns; and Tom was left alone
with his friend.

Edith had taken leave of her husband an hour before. They would see
each other no more till after the trial was over. What the result of
the trial might possibly be they neither of them dared so much as
whisper. Each of them put on a make-believe gaiety and cheerfulness of
manner, hoping thereby to deceive the other--as if such a thing were
possible.

"In two days' time you will be back again at Park Newton," Edith had
said, "and will find yourself saddled with a wife, whom, while a
prisoner, you were compelled to marry against your will. Surely, in so
extreme a case, the Divorce Court would take pity on you, and grant
you some relief."

"An excellent suggestion," said Lionel, with a laugh. "I must have
some talk with Hoskyns about it. Meanwhile, suppose you get your
trunks packed, and prepare for an early start on our wedding tour. Oh!
to get outside these four walls again--to have 'the sky above my head,
and the grass beneath my feet'--what happiness--what ecstasy--that
will be! A week from this time, Edith, we shall be at Chamounix. Think
of that, sweet one! In place of this grim cell--the Alps and Freedom!
Ah me! what a world of meaning there is in those few words!"

The clock struck four. It was time to go. Only by a supreme effort
could Edith keep back her tears--but she did keep them back.

"Goodbye--my husband!" she whispered, as she kissed him on the
lips--the eyes--the forehead. "May He who knows all our sorrows, and
can lighten all our burdens, grant you strength for the morrow!"

Lionel's lips formed the words, "Goodbye," but no sound came from
them. One last clasp of the hand--one last yearning, heartfelt look
straight into each other's eyes, and then Edith was gone. Lionel fell
back on his seat with a groan as the door shut behind her; and there,
with bowed head and clasped fingers, he sat without moving till the
coming of Mr. Tressil and the others warned him that he was no longer
alone.

As soon as Mr. Tressil and Hoskyns were gone, Lionel lighted up his
biggest meerschaum, and Tom was persuaded, for once, into trying a
very mild cigarette. Neither of them spoke much--in fact, neither of
them seemed to have much to say. They were Englishmen, and to-day they
did not belie the taciturnity of their race. They made a few
disjointed remarks about the weather, and they both agreed that there
was every prospect of an excellent harvest. Lionel inquired after the
Culpeppers, and was sorry to hear that the squire was confined to his
room with gout. After that, there seemed to be nothing more to say,
but they understood each other so well that there was no need of words
to interpret between them. Simply to have Tom sitting there, was to
Lionel a comfort and a consolation such as nothing else, except the
presence of his wife, could have afforded him; and for Tom to have
gone to his lodgings without spending that last hour with his friend,
would have been a sheer impossibility.

"I shall see you to-morrow?" asked Lionel, as Tom rose to go.

"Certainly you will."

"Good-night, old fellow."

"Good-night, Dering. Take my advice, and don't sit up reading or
anything to-night, but get off to bed as early as you can."

Lionel nodded and smiled, and so they parted.

Tom had called at Alder Cottage earlier in the day, and had seen Edith
and Mrs. Garside, and had given them their final instructions. He had
one other person still to see--Mr. Sprague, the chemist, and him he
went in search of as soon as he had bidden Lionel good-night.

Mr. Sprague himself came in answer to Tom's ring at the bell, and
ushered his visitor into a stuffy little parlour behind the shop,
where he had been lounging on the sofa in his shirt-sleeves, reading
Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy." And a very melancholy,
careworn-looking man was this chemist whom Tom had come to see. He
looked as if the perpetual battle for daily bread, which had been
going on with him from year's end to year's end ever since he was old
enough to handle a pestle, was at last beginning to daunt him. He had
a cowed, wobegone expression as he passed his fingers wearily through
his thin grizzled locks: although he did his best to put on an air of
cheerfulness at the tardy prospect of a customer.

Tom and the chemist were old acquaintances. Sprague's shop was one of
the institutions of Duxley, and had been known to Tom from his early
boyhood. Once or twice during his present visit to the town he had
called there and made a few purchases, and chatted over old times, and
old friends long dead and gone, with the melancholy chemist.

"You still stick to the old place, Mr. Sprague," said Tom, as he sat
down on the ancient sofa.

"Yes, Mr. Bristow--yes. I don't know that I could do better. My father
kept the shop before me, and everybody in Duxley knows it."

"I suppose you will be retiring on your fortune before long?"

The chemist laughed a hollow laugh. "With thirteen youthful and
voracious mouths to feed, it looks like making a fortune, don't it,
sir?"

"A baker's dozen of youngsters! Fie, Mr. Sprague, fie!"

"Talking about the baker, sir, I give you my word of honour that he
and the butcher take nearly every farthing of profit I get out of my
business. It has come to this: that I can no longer make ends meet, as
I used to do years ago. For the first time in my life, sir, I am
behindhand with my rent, and goodness only knows when and how I shall
get it made up." Mr. Sprague's voice was very pitiable as he finished.

"But, surely, some of your children are old enough to help
themselves," said Tom.

"The eldest are all girls," answered poor Mr. Sprague, "and they have
to stay at home and help their mother with the little ones. My eldest
boy, Alex, is only nine years old."

"Just the age to get him off your hands--just the age to get him into
the Downham Foundation School."

"Oh, sir, what a relief that would be, both to his poor mother and me!
The same thought has struck me, sir, many a time, but I have no
influence--none whatever."

"But it is possible that I may have a little," said Tom, kindly.

"Oh, Mr. Bristow!" gasped the chemist, and then could say no more.

"Supposing--merely supposing, you know," said Tom, "that I were to get
your eldest boy into the Downham Foundation School, and were, in
addition, to put a hundred-pound note into your hands with which to
pay off your arrears of rent, you would be willing to do a trifling
service for me in return?"

"I should be the most ungrateful wretch in the world were I to refuse
to do so," replied the chemist, earnestly.

"Then listen," said Tom. "You are summoned to serve as one of the jury
in the great murder case to-morrow."

Mr. Sprague nodded.

"You will serve, as a matter of course," continued Tom. "I shall be in
the court, and in such a position that you can see me without
difficulty. As soon as the clock strikes three, you will look at me,
and you will keep on looking at me every two or three minutes, waiting
for a signal from me. Perhaps it will not be requisite for me to give
the signal at all--in that case I shall not need your services; but
whether they are needed or no, your remuneration will in every respect
be the same."

"And what is the signal, Mr. Bristow, for which I am to look out?"

"The scratching, with my little finger--thus--of the left-hand side of
my nose."

"And what am I to do when I see the signal?"

"You are to pretend that you are taken suddenly ill, and you are to
keep up that pretence long enough to render it impossible for the
trial to be finished on Monday--long enough, in fact, to make its
postponement to Tuesday morning an inevitable necessity."

"I understand, sir. You want the trial to extend into the second day;
instead of being finished, as it might be, on the first?"

"That is exactly what I want. Can you counterfeit a sudden attack of
illness, so as to give it an air of reality?"

"I ought to be able to do so, sir. I see plenty of the symptoms every
day of my life."

"They will send for a doctor to examine you, you know."

"I suppose so, sir. But my plan will be this: not merely to pretend to
be ill, but to be ill in reality. To swallow something, in fact--say a
pill concocted by myself--which will really make me very sick and ill
for two or three hours, without doing me any permanent injury."

"Not a bad idea by any means. But you understand that you are to take
no action whatever in the matter until you see my signal."

"I understand that clearly."

After a little more conversation, Tom went, carrying with him in his
waistcoat pocket a tiny phial, filled with some dark-coloured fluid
which the chemist had mixed expressly for him.

On the point of leaving, Tom produced three or four rustling pieces of
paper. "Here are thirty pounds on account, Mr. Sprague," said he. "I
think we understand one another, eh?"

The chemist's fingers closed like a vice on the notes. His heart gave
a great sigh of relief. "I am your humble servant to command, Mr.
Bristow," he returned. "You have saved my credit and my good name, and
you may depend upon me in every way."

As Tom was walking soberly towards his lodging, he passed the open
door of the Royal Hotel. Under the portico stood a man smoking a
cigar. Their eyes met for an instant in the lamplight, but they were
strangers to each other, and Tom passed on his way. Next moment he
started, and turned to look again. He had heard a voice say: "Mr. St.
George, your dinner is served."

He had come at last, then, this cousin, who had not been seen in
Duxley since the day of the inquest--on whose evidence to-morrow so
much would depend.

"Is that the man, I wonder," said Tom to himself, "in whose breast
lies hidden the black secret of the murder? If not in his--then in
whose?"




CHAPTER II.
THE TRIAL.


"How say you, prisoner at the bar: Guilty or Not Guilty?"

"Not Guilty."

There was a moment's pause. A slight murmur passed like a ripple
through the dense crowd. Each individual item, male and female, tried
to wriggle itself into a more comfortable position, knowing that it
was fixed in that particular spot for some hours to come. The crier of
the court called silence where silence was already, and next moment
Mr. Purcell, the counsel for the prosecution, rose to his feet. He
glanced up at the prisoner for one brief moment, bowed slightly to the
judge, hitched his gown well forward, fixed one foot firmly on a
spindle of the nearest chair, and turned over the first page of his
brief.

Mr. Purcell possessed in an eminent degree the faculty of clear and
lucid exposition. His manner was passionless, his style frigid. He
aimed at nothing more than giving a cold, unvarnished statement of the
facts. But then the way in which he marshalled his facts--going, step
by step, through the evidence as taken before the magistrates,
bringing out with fatal clearness point after point against the
prisoner, gradually wrapping him round, as it were, in an inextricable
network of evidence from which it seemed impossible for any human
agency to free him--was, to such of his hearers as could appreciate
his efforts, an intellectual treat of a very rare order indeed: Even
Lionel had to ask himself, in a sort of maze: "Am I guilty, or am I
not?" when Mr. Purcell came to the end of his exposition, and took
breath for a moment while the first witness for the prosecution was
being sworn by the clerk of the court.

That first witness was Kester St. George.

Mr. St. George looked very pale--his recent illness might account for
that--but he showed not the slightest trace of nervousness as he
stepped into the witness-box. It was noticed by several people that he
kept his eyes fixed straight before him, and never once turned them on
the prisoner in the dock.

The evidence elicited from Mr. St. George was--epitomized--to the
following effect:--Was own cousin to the prisoner at the bar, but had
not seen him since they were boys together till prisoner called on him
in London a few weeks before the murder. Met prisoner in the street
shortly afterwards. Introduced him to Mr. Osmond, the murdered man,
who happened to be in his (witness's) company at the time. Prisoner,
on the spot, invited both witness and Osmond to visit him at Park
Newton. The invitation was accepted. Witness and Osmond went down to
Park Newton, and up to the night of the murder everything passed off
in the most amicable and friendly spirit. On that evening they all
three dined by invitation with Mr. Culpepper, of Pincote. They got
back to Park Newton about eleven o'clock. Osmond then proposed to
finish up the evening with a game at billiards. Prisoner objected for
a time, but ultimately yielded the point, and they all went into the
billiard-room. The game was to be a hundred up, and everything went on
satisfactorily till Osmond accused prisoner of having played with
the wrong ball. This prisoner denied. An altercation followed.
After some words on both sides, Osmond threw part of a glass of
seltzer-and-brandy into prisoner's face. Prisoner sprang at Osmond and
seized him by the throat. Osmond drew a small revolver and fired at
prisoner, but fortunately missed him. Witness then interposed, dragged
Osmond from the room, and put him into the hands of his (witness's)
valet, with instructions not to leave him till he was safely in bed.
Then went back to prisoner, whom he found still in the billiard-room,
but depressed in spirits, and complaining of one of those violent head
aches that were constitutional with him. Witness himself being subject
to similar headaches, recommended to prisoner's notice a certain
mixture from which he had himself derived much benefit. Prisoner
agreed to take a dose of the mixture. Witness went to his own bedroom
to obtain it, and then took it to the prisoner, whom he found
partially undressed, preparing for bed. Prisoner took the mixture.
Then he and witness bade each other good-night, and separated. Next
morning, at eight o'clock, witness's valet brought a telegram to his
bedroom summoning him to London on important business. He dressed
immediately, and left Park Newton at once--an hour and a half before
the discovery of the murder.

Cross-examined by Mr. Tressil:

The only one of the three who was at all the worse for wine on their
return from Pincote was Mr. Osmond. Had several times seen him in a
similar condition. On such occasions he was very talkative, and rather
inclined to be quarrelsome. Osmond was in error in saying that
prisoner played with the wrong ball. Witness, in his position as
marker, was watching the game very carefully, and was certain that no
such mistake was made. Osmond was grossly insulting; and prisoner, all
through the quarrel, acted with the greatest forbearance. It was not
till after Osmond had thrown the brandy-and-seltzer in his face that
prisoner laid hands on him at all. The instant after, Osmond drew his
revolver and fired. The bullet just missed prisoner's head and lodged
in the wall behind him. After Osmond left the room no animosity or
ill-feeling was evinced by prisoner towards him. On the contrary,
prisoner expressed his deep regret that such a fracas should have
taken place under his roof. Had not the slightest fear that there
would be any renewal of the quarrel afterwards, or would not have left
for London next morning. Certainly thought that an ample apology was
due from Osmond, and never doubted that such an apology would be
forthcoming when he had slept off the effects of the wine. Was never
more surprised or shocked in his life than when he heard of the
murder, and that his cousin was accused of the crime. It seemed to him
too horrible for