Not so with Mrs. Lauson. Even the horror which had entered the family life could not open the hard crust which disease and disappointment had formed over her nature, and she met the old man’s attempts to make her communicative with her usual sulky or pettish reticence. There never was such an unreasonable creature as this wretched wife, who, while she remained unmarried, had striven so hard to be agreeable to the other sex. It was not with her husband alone that she fought, but with every one, whether man or woman, who came near her. Whoever entered the house, whether it were some gossiping neighbor or the clergyman or the doctor, she flew out of it on discovering their approach, and wandered alone about the fields until they departed. This absence she would perhaps employ in eating green fruit, hoping, as she said, to make herself sick and die, or, at least, to make herself sick enough to plague her husband. At meals she generally sat in glum silence, although once or twice she burst out in violent tirades, scoffing at the Squire’s management of the place, defying him to strike her, etc.
Her appearance at this time was miserable and little less than disgusting. Her skin was thick and yellow; her eyes were bloodshot and watery; her nose was reddened with frequent crying; her form was of an almost skeleton thinness; her manner was full of strange starts and gaspings. It was curious to note the contrast between her perfect wretchedness of aspect and the unfeeling coolness with which the Squire watched and studied her.
In this woful way was the Lauson family getting on when the country around was electrified by an event which almost threw the murder itself into the shade. Henry Foster, the accepted lover of Bessie Barron, a professor in the Scientific College of Hampstead, was suddenly arrested as the assassin of Miss Mercy Lauson.
“What does this mean!” was his perfectly natural exclamation, when seized by the officers of justice; but it was uttered with a sudden pallor which awakened in the bystanders a strong suspicion of his guilt. No definite answer was made to his question until he was closeted with the lawyer whom he immediately retained in his defence.
“I should like to get at the whole of your case, Mr. Foster,” said the legal gentleman. “I must beg you, for your own sake, to be entirely frank with me.”