Run to Earth: A Novel

by M. E. Braddon

"Are you sure that there was nothing in the glass when you took the salver to you master?"

"Quite sure, sir. I'm very particular about having all my glass bright and clear—it's the under butler's duty to see to that, and it's my duty to keep him up to his work. I should have seen in a moment if the glass had been dull and smudgy at the bottom."

The water remaining in the carafe had been examined by the medical witnesses, and had been declared by them to be perfectly pure. The claret had been untouched. The poison could, therefore, have only been introduced to the baronet's room in the glass; and the butler protested that no one but himself and his assistant had access to the place in which the glass had been kept.

How, then, could the baronet have been poisoned, except by his own hand?

Reginald Eversleigh was one of the last witnesses examined. He told of the interview between himself and his uncle, on the day preceding Sir Oswald's death. He told of Lydia Graham's revelations—he told everything calculated to bring disgrace upon the woman who sat, pale and silent, confronting her fate.

She seemed unmoved by these scandalous revelations. She had passed through such bitter agony within the last few days and nights, that it seemed to her as if nothing could have power to move her more.

She had endured the shame of her husband's distrust. The man she loved so dearly had cast her from him with disdain and aversion. What new agony could await her equal to that through which she had passed.

Reginald Eversleigh's hatred and rage betrayed him into passing the limits of prudence. He told the story of the destroyed will, and boldly accused Lady Eversleigh of having destroyed it.

"You forget yourself, Sir Reginald," said the coroner; "you are here as a witness, and not as an accuser."

"But am I to keep silence, when I know that yonder woman is guilty of a crime by which I am robbed of my heritage?" cried the young man, passionately. "Who but she was interested in the destruction of that will? Who had so strong a motive for wishing my uncle's death? Why was she hiding in the castle after her pretended departure, except for some guilty purpose? She left her own apartments before dusk, after writing a farewell letter to her husband. Where was she, and what was she doing, after leaving those apartments?"