Page:Blanchard on L. E. L.pdf/184

184 announcing his loss, he declares that his affection for her, his confidence in all the qualities that had endeared her to him, remained unimpaired to the latest moment. His account of the circumstances preceding the calamity, and of the feelings it had produced in him, is a picture of generous attachment, intrepid exertion, and constant fortitude on her part—of constant occupation and illness, and a heavy sense of loss, on his.

In the next place, according to the evidence of Mrs. Bailey, her mistress had "wished to take a little of the medicine out of the bottle, for relief from spasms the evening before;" she had not "complained much" in the morning, but had made the servant a present, and "was in her usual spirits." Further there is Mr. Maclean's evidence that she had been in close attendance upon him while sick, and had suffered from want of rest for three nights; that she was very subject to spasms and hysterical affections, and was in the habit of using the "medicine contained in the bottle" (whatever it may have been), as a remedy and prevention.

From a consideration of these two points, then, it appears, first, that there is no ground whatever on which to found a presumption of any motive for a sudden resolve of self-destruction; and, secondly that there is some ground for presuming an intention to resort to the "medicine contained in the bottle," for precisely the same reason and purpose (though she had not complained "much" when Mrs. Bailey last saw her) that prompted the desire to use it the evening before.

And now arises this serious question: What particle of evidence is there yet in existence that she ever took Prussic acid at all? Let justice be