tate of the woman's mind when she paid her visit
to Gleninch.

Writing to Mr. Macallan, at a time when she was married to another
man--a man to whom she had engaged herself before she met with Mr.
Macallan what does she say? She says, "When I think of your life
sacrificed to that wretched woman, my heart bleeds for you." And, again,
she says, "If it had been my unutterable happiness to love and cherish
the best, the dearest of men, what a paradise of our own we might have
lived in, what delicious hours we might have known!"

If this is not the language of a woman shamelessly and furiously in love
with a man--not her husband--what is? She is so full of him that even
her idea of another world (see the letter) is the idea of "embracing"
Mr. Macallan's "soul." In this condition of mind and morals, the lady
one day finds herself and her embraces free, through the death of her
husband. As soon as she can decently visit she goes visiting; and in
due course of time she becomes the guest of the man whom she adores. His
wife is ill in her bed. The one other visitor at Gleninch is a cripple,
who can only move in his chair on wheels. The lady has the house and the
one beloved object in it all to herself. No obstacle stands between her
and "the unutterable happiness of loving and cherishing the best, the
dearest of men" but a poor, sick, ugly wife, for whom Mr. Macallan never
has felt, and never can feel, the smallest particle of love.

Is it perfectly absurd to believe that such a woman as this, impelled by
these motives, and surrounded by these circumstances, would be capable
of committing a crime--if the safe opportunity offered itself?

What does her own evidence say?

She admits that she had a conversation with Mrs. Eustace Macallan, in
which that lady questioned her on the subject of cosmetic applications
to the complexion. Did nothing else take place at that interview? Did
Mrs. Beauly make no discoveries (afterward turned to fatal account) of
the dangerous experiment which her hostess was then trying to improve
her ugly complexion? All we know is that Mrs. Beauly said nothing about
it.

What does the under-gardener say?

He heard a conversation between Mr. Macallan and Mrs. Beauly, which
shows that the possibility of Mrs. Beauly becoming Mrs. Eustace Macallan
had certainly presented itself to that lady's mind, and was certainly
considered by her to be too dangerous a topic of discourse to be
pursued. Innocent Mr. Maca