“How horrible! Do you really mean it?” “Listen to me! This man Brandt matriculated in the Swiss hospitals, whence he was expelled for having caused the death of more than one patient by trying his scientific experiments upon them. The Swiss laboratories are renowned for being the foremost in Vivisection and other branches of science that gratify the curiosity and harden the heart of man more than they confer any lasting benefit on humanity. Even there, Henry Brandt’s barbarity was considered to render him unfit for association with civilised practitioners, and he was expelled with ignominy. Having a private fortune he settled in Jamaica, and set up his laboratory there, and I would not shock your ears by detailing one hundredth part of the atrocities that were said to take place under his supervision, and in company of this man Trawler, whom the girl calls her trustee, and who is one of the greatest brutes unhung.” “Are you not a little prejudiced, dear Doctor?” “Not at all! If when you have heard all, you still say so, you are not the woman I have taken you for. Brandt did not confine his scientific investigations to the poor dumb creation. He was known to have decoyed natives into his Pandemonium, who were never heard of again, which raised, at last, the public feeling so much against him, that I am glad to say that his negroes revolted, and after having murdered him with appropriate atrocity, set fire to his house and burned it and all his property to the ground. Don’t look so shocked! I repeat that I am _glad_ to say it, for he richly deserved his fate, and no torture could be too severe for one who spent his worthless life in torturing God’s helpless animals!” “And his wife--” commenced Margaret. “He had no wife! He was never married!” “Never married! But this girl Harriet Brandt--” “Has no more right to the name than you have! Henry Brandt was not the man to regard the laws, either of God or man. There was no reason why he should not have married--for that very cause, I suppose, he preferred to live in concubinage.” “Poor Harriet! Poor child! And her mother, did you know her?”