“Well, I don’t say I shall put it quite as strongly as I’ve put it to you, but still it’s the truth! Mrs. Garlett loved life, for all she was such a poor, sickly thing. You must remember that she had never been a strong and healthy woman.”
And then Mrs. Maclean so far forgot herself as to say something which reduced her husband to silence.
She went back to her place behind the teapot, and from there, in a small, still voice, she said quietly:
“You did make one mistake, Jock. You hadn’t a doubt that the woman died a natural death, and you signed a certificate to that effect. Isn’t it just possible that you’ve made another mistake? Supposing, after all, Mrs. Garlett had got tired of her life and made up her mind to quit? Don’t you go and be too sure of anything, my dear. You were wrong once; you may be wrong again.”
He made no answer to that, and though she loved him well, and had no wish to hurt him, she would not have taken her words back. What she had said was true—in this strange world it is a mistake, sometimes a terrible mistake, to be too sure of anything.
After a while she spoke again:
“I wouldn’t let Jean know about this article, if we can prevent it, Jock. She’s so fearsomely truthful. She might think it her duty to write to the paper and say that she does not believe Mrs. Garlett killed herself! I did raise the point with her after Kentworthy came that first time, and she declared that Harry Garlett told her his wife was much too religious a woman ever to have thought of such a thing—apart from the fact that she always seemed perfectly happy and contented with her life.”
“I think you’re right. We’ll say nothing of it. What a blessing it is that we can trust Elsie to hold her tongue!”
And so it was that Dr. Maclean locked the paper away, and that Jean Bower was never shown the article described as containing her statement.
Yet the so-called statement was widely discussed, and both the Prosecution and the Defence took special note of it. Further, the circulation of the paper was very largely increased, at any rate in Terriford and Grendon, during the weeks which followed. Thus the enterprise the editor had shown in securing the article was justified, though one of the proprietors, when he discovered, as he took the trouble to do, that the author was a casual contributor and had been paid a special fee of fifty guineas, thought the sum excessive.