me that you were in her room not long ago.’  He replied that it was impossible, as he had looked at her and thought her all right except for a little headache.  I said that I trusted that I might be wrong, but if nearly forty years’ experience went for anything I was not wrong.  Then he flew into a passion, and said that if anything was the matter with his wife it was my fault, as I must have brought the contagion or neglected to take the usual antiseptic precautions.  I told him that he should not make such statements without an atom of proof, but, interrupting me, he declared that, fever or no fever, he would attend upon Lady Colford, as he could not afford to throw away the best chance he had ever had.  I said, ’My dear fellow, don’t be mad.  Why, if anything happened to her under the circumstances, I believe that, after I have warned you, you would be liable to be criminally prosecuted for culpable negligence.’  ‘Thank you,’ he answered, ’nothing will happen to her, I know my own business, and I will take the chance of that’; and then, before I could speak again, lifting up his bag from the chair on which he had placed it, he opened the front door and went out.”

I will not attempt, especially after this lapse of years, to describe the feelings with which I listened to this amazing evidence.  The black wickedness and the cold-blooded treachery of the man overwhelmed and paralysed me, so that when, after some further testimony, the chairman asked me if I had any questions to put to the witness, I could only stammer:—­

“It is a lie, an infamous lie!”

“No, no,” said the chairman kindly, “if you wish to make a statement, you will have an opportunity of doing so presently.  Have you any questions to ask the witness?”

I shook my head.  How could I question him on such falsehoods?  Then came the nurse, who, amidst a mass of other information, calmly swore that, standing on the second landing, whither she had accompanied Sir John from his patient’s room, she heard a lengthy conversation proceeding between him and me, and caught the words, “I will take the chance of that,” spoken in my voice.

Again I had no questions to ask, but I remembered that this nurse was a person who for a long while had been employed by Sir John Bell, and one over whom he very probably had some hold.

Then I was asked if I had any witness, but, now that my wife was dead, what witness could I call?—­indeed, I could not have called her had she been alive.  Then, having been cautioned in the ordinary form, that whatever I said might be given as evidence against me at my trial, I was asked if I wished to make any statement.