Soon after this Cranstoun quits the family (having, no question, left instructions how to proceed further in completing the scheme he had laid for taking off the old man), and this you’ll find by letters under his own hand, that the powder, whatever it was, must not be mixed in too thin a liquid, because it might be discovered, and therefore water gruel is thought fitter for the purpose.  By the frequent mixtures that were made upon these occasions the unfortunate servant and charwoman accidentally drank part of the deadly composition.  When complaint is made of their sickness, how does the prisoner behave?  Does she not administer to them with as much art and skill as a physician could?  Does she not prescribe proper liquids and draughts to absorb and take off the edge of the corroding poison?  If she knew not what it was how could she administer so successfully to prevent the fatal consequences of it both in the maid and the charwoman?  During this transaction the unhappy father finds himself afflicted with torturing pains immediately after receiving the composition from his daughter.  Is there any care taken of him?  Any physician sent for to attend him?  Any healing draughts prepared to quiet the racks and tortures that he inwardly felt?  None at all that I can find.  He is left to take care of himself, and undergo those miseries that his own child had brought upon him, and yet had not the heart to give him any assistance.  What could this proceed from, but guilty only?  Would not an innocent child have made the strictest inquiry how her own father came to be out of order?  Would she not have sought the world over for advice and assistance?  But instead of that you hear the bitterest expressions proceed from her, expressions sufficient to shock human nature.  They have been all mentioned already by my learned leader, and I will not again repeat them.

Observe, as things come nearer the crisis, whether her behaviour towards her father carries any better appearance.  When it began to be suspected that Mr. Blandy’s disorder was owing to poison, and strongly, from circumstances, that the prisoner was privy to it, the poor man, now too far gone, being informed that there was great reason to suspect his own child, what expressions does he make use of?  No harsher than in the gentlest method saying, “Poor love-sick girl!  I always thought there was mischief in those Scotch pebbles.  Oh, that damned villain Cranstoun, that has ate of the best and drank of the best my house afforded, to serve me thus and ruin my poor love-sick girl!” An incontestable proof that he knew the cause of his disorder and the authors of it.

The report spread about the house of the father’s suspicions soon alarmed the prisoner; what does she do upon this occasion?  Can any other interpretation be put upon her actions than that they proceeded from a manifest intention to conceal her guilt?  Why is the paper of powder thrown into the fire?  From whence, as my learned leader most elegantly observes, it is miraculously preserved.  What occasion for concealment had she not been conscious of something that was wrong?  If she had not known what had been in the paper, for what purpose was it committed to the flames?  And what really was contained in that paper will appear to you to be deadly poison.