“But you believed with the doctors that if she returned, thereby bringing him peace of mind as well as tender care, he had excellent chances for life?” “I did.” “And Mrs. Burr was instructed to present that phase of the question to the defendant, with all the force of which she was capable?” “Yes.” “And the defendant so understood it?” “I suppose she did.” “And yet you assert that this purely business-like letter, written by a self-respecting woman, was addressed to a dying man, while at the same time you assert that this man could be cured by the gratification of a whim, and that you had taken particular pains to make the defendant aware of the fact!” When Mr. Peele finally left the stand, he looked battered and limp. XIV As soon as the court had opened on the following morning, Mrs. Peele was called. She looked haughtily askance at the worn Bible as the clerk rattled off the oath, bent her head as would she whiff upon what plebeian lips had touched so often and so evidently, and took the witness chair as were she mounting a throne. She was apparelled in crape. Only her intimate friends could have told whether the backward bend of her head was due to the weight of her veil or the weight of her ancestors. At first she stared at the district attorney with haughty resentment, as, for the benefit of the humble jury, he curtly asked her several direct questions; but remembering that he was “a Sturges,” and also recalling her husband’s admonitions, she unbent, and even condescended to address the jury. Her tale of the night in no wise differed from her husband’s; but her accentuation of Patience’s dark threats and marital deficiencies was all her own. Her suggestion of a lover in the case caused a sudden movement in the jury box, although the stolid faces did not relax. Under cross-examination much of her testimony was as effectually demolished as her husband’s had been. Two maid servants followed. They testified to violent quarrels between the young couple. Then the butler testified to the reiterant and emphatic command of the prisoner on the day before the death to send to New York for morphine.