The Law and the Lady

"Is that the book?" she said. "Open it, and see."

I took the book from her.

"It is tremendously interesting," she went on. "I've read it twice over—I have. Mind you, I believe he did it, after all."

Did it? Did what? What was she talking about? I tried to put the question to her. I struggled—quite vainly—to say only these words: "What are you talking about?"

She seemed to lose all patience with me. She snatched the book out of my hand, and opened it before me on the table by which we were standing side by side.

"I declare, you're as helpless as a baby!" she said, contemptuously. "There! Is that the book?"

I read the first lines on the title-page—

A COMPLETE REPORT OF THE TRIAL OF EUSTACE MACALLAN.

I stopped and looked up at her. She started back from me with a scream of terror. I looked down again at the title-page, and read the next lines—

FOR THE ALLEGED POISONING OF HIS WIFE.

There, God's mercy remembered me. There the black blank of a swoon swallowed me up.