“What was the purport of that letter?”
“I can't recollect at this distance of time.”
“On your oath, sir, did you not write urging her to co-operate with you to keep Sir Charles Bassett from marrying his affianced, Miss Bella Bruce, to whom that anonymous letter was written with the same object?”
The perspiration now rolled in visible drops down the tortured liar's face. Yet still, by a gigantic effort, he stood firm, and even planted a blow.
“I did not write the anonymous letter. But I believe I told Miss Somerset I loved Miss Bruce, and that her lover was robbing me of mine, as he had robbed me of everything else.”
“And that was all you said—on your oath?”
“All I can recollect.” With this the strong man, cowed, terrified, expecting his letter to Somerset to be produced, and so the iron chain of evidence completed, gasped out, “Man, you tear open all my wounds at once!” and with this burst out sobbing, and lamenting aloud that he had ever been born.
Counsel waited calmly till he should be in a condition to receive another dose.
“Oh, will nobody stop this cruel trial?” said Lady Bassett, with the tears trickling down her face.
The judge heard this remark without seeming to do so.