as 'running away,'" said Mr. Middleheath, with a bland
smile of protest. "It is highly improper, as nobody knows better than
the Crown Prosecutor, and calculated to convey an altogether erroneous
impression on the minds of the jury. There is not the slightest evidence
to support such a statement. The evidence is that he saw the servant and
paid his bill before departure. That is not running away."

"Very well, I will say hastened away," replied Sir Herbert impatiently.
"Why should the accused hasten away from the inn if he retained no
recollection of the events of the night?"

"He may have had a hazy recollection," replied Sir Henry. "Not of the
act itself, but of strange events happening to him in the
night--something like a bad dream, but more vivid. He may have found
something unusual--such as wet clothes or muddy boots--for which he
could not account. Then he would begin to wonder, and then perhaps there
would come a hazy recollection of some trivial detail. Then, as he came
to himself, he would begin to grow alarmed, and his impulse, as his
normal mind returned to him, would be to leave the place where he was as
soon as he could. This restlessness is a characteristic of epilepsy. In
my opinion, it was this vague alarm, on finding himself in a position
for which he could not account, which was the cause of the accused
leaving the Durrington hotel. His last recollection, as he told me at
the time, was entering the breakfast-room; he came to his senses in his
bedroom, with strangers in the room."

"Does not recollection return completely in attacks of petit mal?"

"Sometimes it does; sometimes not. I remember a case in my student days
where an epileptic violently assaulted a man in the street--almost
murdered him in fact--then assaulted a man who tried to detain him, ran
away, and remembered nothing about it afterwards."

"Is it consistent with petit mal, combined with _furor epilepticus_, for
a man to commit murder, conceal the body of his victim, and remember
nothing about it afterwards?"

"Quite consistent, though the probability is, as I said before, for him
to have some hazy recollection when he came to his senses, which would
lead to his leaving that place as quickly as he could."

"Would it be consistent with petit mal for a man to take a weapon away
beforehand, and then, during a sudden fit of petit mal, use it upon the
unfortunate victim?"

"If he took the weapon for another purpose, it is quite poss