"It will be proven that in October past, after a bitter quarrel with Miss Stair, the accused espoused in a hasty (and in a person of his rank and station), unseemly manner, his mother's cousin, Miss Isabel Erskine; that since that time he has been little in her presence, leaving her alone at the time when a woman most needs the comfort and support of a husband's presence, and paying marked attentions, both in public and private, to the first lady of his choice. "It will be proven that on the day preceding the murder there was published in an Edinburgh paper called The Lounger the news that an engagement of marriage had been contracted between the late John Stewart Aglionby Montrose, Duke of Borthwicke, Muir, etc., and Mistress Nancy Stair, only daughter of John Stair, Lord of Stair and Alton in the Mearns. "It will be proven that immediately upon reading this the accused came directly to Stair, and after entering unannounced into the room where the lady was sitting, asked her if the tale were true, calling the late duke a thiever from the poor, a seducer of women, a man drenched in all manner of villainy, and one whom he would rather see her dead than married to. That he had declared that he still loved and had always loved her, that his marriage was but the result of a crazy jealousy, and besought her to promise him that she would never marry the duke. It will be proven by two competent witnesses that upon her refusing to do this, the accused had cried out, 'I will save you the promising, for I swear he shall never live to marry you.' "It will be proven by a physician of repute that within ten minutes of the time of the murder the accused was seen, hatless, walking very fast or running away from Stair House toward his own home of Arran, and this along a very secluded and unusual path. "In conclusion, testimony will be brought to show that the day before the murder the accused made an agreement with a boatman of Leith to keep a boat ready for him at an hour's notice, either for Ireland or France. "It may be urged that this testimony, even if fully established, is purely circumstantial, for that none saw the accused commit the fatal deed. To this I would answer: "The true question is, not what is the _kind_ of evidence in this cause, but what is the result of it in your minds.