“Sir Thomas Colford is surprised that Dr. Therne should think it worth while to add falsehood to murder.”

Then, for the first time, I understood in what light my terrible misfortune was regarded by the public.  A few days later I received further enlightenment, this time from the lips of an inspector of police, who called upon me with a warrant of arrest on the charge of having done manslaughter on the body of Dame Blanche Colford.

That night I spent in Dunchester Jail, and next morning I was brought before the bench of magistrates, who held a special session to try my case.  The chairman, whom I knew well, very kindly asked me if I did not wish for legal assistance.  I replied, “No, I have nothing to defend,” which he seemed to think a hard saying, at any rate he looked surprised.  On the other side counsel were employed nominally on behalf of the Crown, although in reality the prosecution, which in such a case was unusual if not unprecedented, had been set on foot and undertaken by the Colford family.

The “information” was read by the clerk, in which I was charged with culpable negligence and wilfully doing certain things that caused the death of Blanche Colford.  I stood there in the dock listening, and wondering what possible evidence could be adduced against me in support of such a charge.  After the formal witnesses, relations and doctors, who testified to my being called in to attend on Lady Colford, to the course of the illness and the cause of death, etc., Sir John Bell was called.  “Now,” I thought to myself, “this farce will come to an end, for Bell will explain the facts.”

The counsel for the prosecution began by asking Sir John various questions concerning the terrible malady known as puerperal fever, and especially with reference to its contagiousness.  Then he passed on to the events of the day when I was called in to attend upon Lady Colford.  Sir John described how he had visited my late wife, and, from various symptoms which she had developed somewhat suddenly, to his grief and surprise, had come to the conclusion that she had fallen victim to puerperal fever.  This evidence, to begin with, was not true, for although he suspected the ailment on that afternoon he was not sure of it until the following morning.

“What happened then, Sir John?” asked the counsel.

“Leaving my patient I hurried downstairs to see Dr. Therne, and found him just stepping from his consulting-room into the hall.”

“Did he speak to you?”

“Yes.  He said ‘How do you do?’ and then added, before I could tell him about his wife, ’I am rather in luck to-day; they are calling me in to take Lady Colford’s case.’  I said I was glad to hear it, but that I thought he had better let some one else attend her ladyship.  He looked astonished, and asked why.  I said, ’Because, my dear fellow, I am afraid that your wife has developed puerperal fever, and the nurse tells