Witness.—“I meant whether she signed her letters with L’Angelier’s name, and she said ‘Yes.’ I did not ask her why.”
Cross-examined by Mr. Young.—“I went to live at Helensburgh in 1845. M. L’Angelier visited me, and once he came on a Saturday to my lodgings there, and on Sunday we went on the Luss Road. I went up to my room, and L’Angelier not coming in for his dinner, I called for him out of temper. I then found that he was ill, and was vomiting down the staircase. He once complained to me of being bilious. This was a year ago. He complained of once having the cholera. Last year he came to my office and told me he had had a violent attack of cholera, but I don’t know whether that was a year or two years ago. I think it was a journey he was to have made that led him to speak of having had the cholera. I don’t recollect whether he was unwell at that time. I know that when he came to my house he always had a bottle of laudanum in his bag, but I don’t know if he used it. I once heard him speak of arsenic; it must have been in the winter of 1854. It was on a Sunday. I don’t recollect how the conversation arose, but it lasted half an hour. Its purport was how much arsenic a person could take without its injuring him. He maintained that it was possible to do it, by taking small quantities. I don’t know what led to the conversation, and should be afraid to make any statement as to the purpose for which it was to be taken. L’Angelier stated to me he had once been jilted by an English lady, a rich person, and that on account of the deception he was almost mad for a fortnight, and ran about, getting food from a farmer in the country. He was easily excited: when he had any cause of grief he was affected very much.”
By the Lord Justice Clerk.—“After my marriage I had little intercourse with L’Angelier. I thought that he might be led to take some harsh steps with Miss Smith, and as I had some young ladies in my house, I did not think it was proper to have the same intercourse with him as when I was a bachelor.”
The Lord Advocate.—“What do you mean by ‘harsh steps?’”
Witness.—“I was afraid of an elopement. By ‘harsh’ I mean ‘rash.’ This was after L’Angelier had given me his full confidence as to what he would do if her father did not consent to the marriage.”
The Lord Justice Clerk.—“ Did you understand that Miss Smith had engaged herself to him?”
Witness.—“I understood so from what he said.”
The Lord Justice Clerk.—“When you used the expression ‘you thought it right to go to Mr. Smith about the letters, in order that he might take steps to vindicate his daughter’s honour, or prevent it from being disparaged,’ did you relate to him her engagement and apparent breach of it? Had you in view that the letters might contain an engagement which she was breaking, or that she had made a clandestine engagement?”
Witness.—“I thought that these letters were love letters, and that it would be much better that they should be in Mr. Smith’s hands than in those of strangers.”
The Lord Advocate.—“ What were L’Angelier’s usual character and habits?”