Part Two Paradise Regained Chapter 19 The Evidence for the Defense

"The extracts from my son's Diary are a libel on his character," she said. "And not the less a libel because they happen to be written by himself. Speaking from a mother's experience of him, I know that he must have written the passages produced in moments of uncontrollable depression and despair. No just person judges hastily of a man by the rash words which may escape him in his moody and miserable moments. Is my son to be so judged because he happens to have written his rash words, instead of speaking them? His pen has been his most deadly enemy, in this case--it has presented him at his very worst. He was not happy in his marriage--I admit that. But I say at the same time that he was invariably considerate toward his wife. I was implicitly trusted by both of them; I saw them in their most private moments. I declare--in the face of what she appears to have written to her friends and correspondents--that my son never gave his wife any just cause to assert that he treated her with cruelty or neglect."

The words, firmly and clearly spoken, produced a strong impression. The Lord Advocate--evidently perceiving that any attempt to weaken that impression would not be likely to succeed--confined himself, in cross-examination, to two significant questions.

"In speaking to you of the defects in her complexion," he said, "did your daughter-in-law refer in any way to the use of arsenic as a remedy?"