“All of the point,” returned the alienist. “The next day I saw in the Times that a man, supposed to be James Morganson, who was wanted for murder, was found dead in a first-class smoking-compartment of the Midland Railway. Coroner’s verdict, ‘Death resulting from an overdose of opium, taken with suicidal intent.’”
The journalist dropped a lump of sugar in his cup and watched it attentively.
“I don’t think I could have done it,” he said. “I might have left him with his carbolic. But I couldn’t have deliberately given him his death-potion.”
“But as long as he was going to die,” responded the girl in black, “it was better to let him die painlessly.”
The Englishman smiled. “Can a woman ever consider the ethical side of a question when the sympathetic one is visible?” he asked.
The alienist cracked another almond. “I was sincere,” he said. “Of that there is no doubt. I thought I did right. The question is—did I do right?”
“It would have been wiser,” began the lawyer, argumentatively, “since you were the stronger, to take the vial from him and leave him to the care of the law.”
“But the wife and children,” replied the girl in black. “And hanging is so horrible!”
“So is murder,” responded the lawyer, dryly.
The young woman on the Captain’s right laid her napkin on the table and rose. “I don’t know what was right,” she said, “but I do know that in your place I should have felt like a murderer.”