The Law and the Lady

subject of the Trial.'

'Go on,' he said, with one of his grim outbursts of humor. 'Here I am at your mercy—a martyr at the stake. Poke the fire! poke the fire!'

'I am only an ignorant woman,' I resumed, 'and I dare say I am quite wrong; but there is one part of my husband's trial which doesn't at all satisfy me. The defense set up for him seems to me to have been a complete mistake.'

'A complete mistake?' he repeated. 'Strange language, Mrs. Valeria, to say the least of it!' He tried to speak lightly; he took up his goblet of wine; but I could see that I had produced an effect on him. His hand trembled as it carried the wine to his lips.

'I don't doubt that Eustace's first wife really asked him to buy the arsenic,' I continued. 'I don't doubt that she used it secretly to improve her complexion. But what I do not believe is that she died of an overdose of the poison, taken by mistake.'

He put back the goblet of wine on the table near him so unsteadily that he spilled the greater part of it. For a moment his eyes met mine, then looked down again.

'How do you believe she died?' he inquired, in tones so low that I could barely hear them.

'By the hand of a poisoner,' I answered.

He made a movement as if he were about to start up in the chair, and sank back again, seized, apparently, with a sudden faintness.

'Not my husband!' I hastened to add. 'You know that I am satisfied of his innocence.'

I saw him shudder. I saw his hands fasten their hold convulsively on the arms of his chair.

'Who poisoned her?' he asked, still lying helplessly back in the chair.

At the critical moment my courage failed me. I was afraid to tell him in what direction my suspicions pointed.

'Can't you guess?' I said.

There was a pause. I supposed him to be secretly following his own train of thought. It was not for long. On a sudden he started up in his chair. The prostration which had possessed him appeared to vanish in an instant. His eyes recovered their wild light; his hands were steady again; his color was brighter than ever. Had he been pondering over the secret of my interest in Mrs. Beauly? and had he guessed? He had!

'Answer on your word of honor!' he cried. 'Don't attempt to deceive me! Is it a woman?'

'It is.'

'What is the first letter of her name? Is it one of the first three letters of the alphabet?'

'Yes.'

'B?'

'Yes.'

'Beauly?'

'Beauly.'

He threw his hands up above his head, and burst into a frantic fit of laughter.

'I have lived long enough!' he broke out, wildly. 'At last I have discovered one other person in the world who sees it as plainly as I do. Cruel Mrs. Valeria! why did you torture me? Why didn't you own it before?'

'What!' I exclaimed, catching the infection of his excitement. 'Are your ideas my ideas? Is it possible that you suspect Mrs. Beauly too?'

He made this remarkable reply:

'Suspect?' he repeated, contemptuously. 'There isn't the shadow of a doubt about it. Mrs. Beauly poisoned her.'

CHAPTER XXX. THE INDICTMENT OF MRS. BEAULY.

I STARTED to my feet, and looked at Miserrimus Dexter. I was too much agitated to be able to speak to him.

My utmost expectations had not prepared me for the tone of absolute conviction in which he had spoken. At the best, I had anticipated that he might, by the barest chance, agree with me in suspecting Mrs. Beauly. And now his own lips had said it, without hesitation or reserve! 'There isn't the shadow of a doubt: Mrs. Beauly poisoned her.'

'Sit down,' he said, quietly. 'There's nothing to be afraid of. Nobody can hear us in this room.'

I sat down again, and recovered myself a little.

'Have you never told any one else what you have just told me?' was the first question that I put to him.

'Never. No one else suspected her.'

'Not even the lawyers?'

'Not even the lawyers. There is no legal evidence against Mrs. Beauly. There is nothing but moral certainty.'