"Halt here," said Dr. Rane, suddenly speaking aloud, as if he were a special pleader arguing in a law court. "Can a man be called a murderer who has never had the smallest intention of murdering--who would have flown in horror from the bare idea? Let us suppose it was--Mrs. North--who wrote the letter? Alexander suspects her, at any rate. Put it that she had some motive for writing it. It might have been a good motive--that of stopping Edward North in his downward career, as the letter intimated--and she fancied this might be best accomplished by letting his father hear of what he, in conjunction with Alexander, was doing. According to Alexander, she does not interfere openly between the young men and their father; it isn't her policy to do so: and she may have considered that the means she took were legitimate under the circumstances. Well, could she for a moment imagine that any terrible consequences would ensue? A rating from Mr. North to his son, and the matter would be over. Just so: she was innocent of any other thought. Then how could she be thought guilty?" Dr. Rane paused. A book lay on the table: he turned its leaves backwards and forwards in abstraction, his mind revolving the subject. Presently he resumed. "Or--take Alexander's view of the letter--that it was written to damage him with Mr. North and the neighbourhood generally. Madam--say again--had conceived a dislike to Alexander, wished him dismissed from the house, but had no plea for doing it, and so took _that_ means of accomplishing her end. Could she suspect that the result would be fatal to Edmund North? Would she not have shrunk with abhorrence from writing the letter, had she foreseen it? Certainly. Then, under these circumstances, how can a man--I mean a woman--be responsible, legally or morally, for the death? It would be utterly unjust to charge her with it. Edmund North is alone to blame. Clearly so. The case is little better than one of unintentional suicide." Having arrived at this view of the subject--so comforting for the unknown writer--Dr. Rane rose briskly, and began to wash his hands and brush his hair. He took a note-case from his pocket, in which he was in the habit of entering his daily engagements, to see at what hour he could most conveniently visit the brick-fields, in compliance with the message received. The sick woman was in no danger, as he knew, and he might choose his own time. In passing through the ante-room--a room, by the way, generally distinguished as the Drab Room, from the unusual colour of the hideous walls--he took up one of the glass jars, requiring it for some purpose downstairs. And then he noticed something that displeased him. "Phillis!" he called, going out to the landing: "Phillis!" And the woman, a very active little body, came running up. "You have been sweeping the Drab Room?" "It was so dirty, sir."