it"--she could not be sure which. A noise of some sort
seemed to alarm them: they ceased struggling, and listened attentively
for a few seconds: then Alfred Bourdon stole off on tip-toe, leaving the
object in dispute, which witness could not see distinctly, in his
mother's hand. Mrs. Bourdon continued to listen, and presently Miss
Armitage, opening the door of her mother's chamber, called her by name.
She immediately placed what was in her hand on the marble top of a
side-table standing in the corridor, and hastened to Miss Armitage.
Witness left the room she had been in a few minutes afterwards, and,
curious to know what Mrs. Bourdon and her son had been struggling for,
went to the table to look at it. It was an oddly-shaped glass bottle,
containing a good deal of a blackish-gray powder, which, as she held it
up to the light, looked like black-lead!

"Would you be able to swear to the bottle if you saw it?"

"Certainly I should."

"By what mark or token?"

"The name of Valpy or Vulpy was cast into it--that is, the name was in
the glass itself."

"Is this it?"

"It is: I swear most positively."

A letter was also read which had been taken from Bourdon's pocket. It was
much creased, and was proved to be in the handwriting of Mrs. Armitage.
It consisted of a severe rebuke at the young man's presumption in seeking
to address himself to her daughter, which insolent ingratitude, the
writer said, she should never, whilst she lived, either forget or
forgive. This last sentence was strongly underlined in a different ink
from that used by the writer of the letter.

The surgeon deposed to the cause of death. It had been brought on by the
action of iodine, which, administered in certain quantities, produced
symptoms as of rapid atrophy, such as had appeared in Mrs. Armitage. The
glass bottle found in the recess contained iodine in a pulverized state.

I deposed that, on entering the library on the previous evening I
overheard young Mr. Bourdon, addressing his mother, say, "Now that it is
done past recall, I will not shrink from any consequences, be they what
they may!"

This was the substance of the evidence adduced; and the magistrate at
once committed Alfred Bourdon to Chelmsford jail, to take his trial at
the next assize for "wilful murder." A coroner's inquisition a few days
after also returned a verdict of "wilful murder" against him on the
same evidence.

About an hour after his committal, and just previous to