These were not the only arguments against myself which occurred to me. There was Mrs. Fortress's conduct when she left Rosemullion after the death of her mistress. Gabriel Carew had made a pitiful appeal to her. How had she met him? By assuming a mysterious air, indicating that she had the key to a secret in which he was vitally interested, but that she did not intend to give it to him. Why had she done this? Who could doubt the answer to such a question? It was necessary to the _rôle_ she had adopted. Any other course would have led to an exposure of her vile scheme. There was the legacy which Mr. Carew left her in his will. Were the real truth known she might be deprived of it. Therefore, the assumption of mystery in her last interview with Gabriel Carew. A cunning woman indeed. Against evidence so flimsy there was a heavy weight of testimony. Was not Gabriel Carew a loving husband and father? No person could dispute it. He loved his wife and child, and they loved him. Was he ever known to commit a cruel act! Never. Was not his purse ever open to the call of charity? Innumerable instances that such was so could be adduced. Could even light acts of rudeness and incivility be laid at his door? What was the worst that could be said of him? That he was not fond of society, that he was a recluse. Could not this be said of hundreds of estimable men, and was it ever put forth as a distinct offence? If he did not himself go into society, did he prevent his wife and child from doing so? On the contrary. He encouraged them to seek amusement which he, a grave man and a student, possibly deemed frivolous. Fond of books, seeking his greatest pleasures in them, was not this distinctly in his favour, and did it not prove him to be of a superior nature to the common herd? The heaviest charge was that which, in conversation with me, he had brought against himself--that on the approach of night his spirits became gloomy. Slight grounds indeed for so serious an accusation as insanity. Madmen were proverbially cunning. Gabriel Carew was the soul of frankness, himself opening up discussions which would tell against him were he not mentally and physically sound and healthy. I began to despair. These reflections did not all pass through my mind in the silence which followed the conclusion of Mrs. Fortress's statement. They are the summing-up of my thoughts at that time and during my homeward journey. Meanwhile, Mrs. Fortress was waiting patiently for me to put any questions which might occur to me. "Beyond yourself, Mrs. Fortress," I said, "and your master and mistress, was there no person cognisant with Mrs. Carew's condition?" "None, sir, with the exception of the foreign doctor." "Can you tell me his name?" "I do not know it, but a doctor of his learning would not have been a young man when Mr. Carew consulted him, and it is hardly likely he would be now living." "True," I said.