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"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.
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 Majesty's Advocate, for Her Majesty's interest," of the Murder of his Wife by poison, at his residence called Gleninch, in the county of Mid-Lothian.
A modern philosopher, with his hypothesis, is like a man possessed with a devil in times of yore; and it is not to be cast out by any human means, that I know of." "As you please," replied Macallan, laughing; "I only deprecated a bad habit." "An hypothesis is only a habit, a habit of looking through a glass of one peculiar colour, which imparts its hue to all around it.
"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." "Why 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."
Legs or no legs, the housekeeper saw him, and she says, as I say, she will never forget him to her dying day. 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. She made a formal courtesy, and quitted the room.
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 downstairs, 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.
"It ought to be something devilish hard," observed Courtenay. "Yes, sar, debblish hard find out. Now, sar, Why Massa Macallan like a general?" "I'm sure I can't tell. We give it up, Billy." "Then, sar, I tell you. Because he 'feelossifer." "Bravo, Billy! Why, you'll write a book soon.
The surgeon, whose name was Macallan, was also most deservedly a great favourite with Captain M ; indeed, there was a friendship between them, grown out of long acquaintance with each other's worth, inconsistent with, and unusual, in a service where the almost despotic power of the superior renders the intimacy of the inferior similar to the smoothing with your hand the paw of a lion, whose fangs, in a moment of caprice, may be darted into your flesh.
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?
The day was fine for the time of year; and by way of getting a little wholesome exercise after the surprises and occupations of the morning, I took my letter to Mr. Playmore to the post. Returning to the villa, I was informed that another visitor was waiting to see me: a civilized visitor this time, who had given her name. My mother-in-law Mrs. Macallan.
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