"He was in great pain and could only get rest and relief by means of opiates. How the mistake occurred I cannot explain, except that the bottles of distilled water and of strychnine stand alongside one another on my shelf, and that I had come in very tired that night and the sleeping-draught was prepared hurriedly. I deplore the results more than any of you possibly can, and of course I must accept the consequences. I have not judged it necessary to make any post-mortem examination. I was called by young Job early yesterday morning, and when I got here Carew was dead and the symptoms were those of poisoning by strychnine. I was amazed and horrified, but when I hurried back home I saw at once how the mistake might have been made, and--and--well, there the matter is and you must bring in such verdict as you deem right. You can see the body if you wish. You can examine the servants. Mrs Carew, I am sorry to say, is quite broken down with the shock. She has been, I am told, practically unconscious for nearly twenty-four hours and has only just come to herself. But if you would like to see her----" "No, no." "No need whatever," said the jurymen deprecatingly. Dr Wulfrey sat down and dropped his head into his hands, then got up again heavily and said, "You will discuss this matter better without me. I will leave you----" "Couldn't you possibly say he died as result of the accident, Wulf?" asked one--Jim Barclay of Breme. They all liked the Doctor. With some he had been on terms of very close friendship. Some of them had known him all his life and his father before him. "Ay, couldn't you?" chorussed some of the others. "If I could I should have done so," he said quietly. "But it wasn't so and I couldn't say it was." "Say it now, Wulf," urged his friend. "And I swear none of us will let it out. Isn't that so, gentlemen?" "Ay, ay!"--but somewhat dubiously from the older members, who saw that after this revelation of the actual facts to themselves their relations with the Doctor could never be quite the same again, however they might succeed in hoodwinking the world outside. They knew him, they liked him, but--well, at the back of their minds was the thought that if Dr Wulf could make a mistake in one case, there was no knowing but what he might in another,--that he might at any time come in tired and pick up the wrong bottle,--that, whatever risks one might accept on one's own account for old friendship's sake, one's wife and daughters should hardly be put into such a position all unknown to themselves. And more than one of them wondered what he would do if he should happen to be taken ill that night--send for Dr Wulf or the new man down in the village? Dale diagnosed their symptoms with the sensitiveness born of the equivocal nature of the new relationship in which his confession placed him towards them.