“In the first place, let me speak for myself, and upbraid you for your criminal carelessness. You left that vial of strychnia globules on the table in the library, where any one might have taken them, and been poisoned to death. You deserve to be hanged for a bungler, as you are! If you wished to poison me, why didn’t you do it without exposing the lives of others. Why didn’t you take my life like a man, and not render half a dozen others liable to the fate you prepared for me! Why, you careless wretch! I came very near giving the poison to Julia. You have nearly taken her life, instead of mine. It was not my fault. I didn’t know you had substituted strychnia for belladonna in my vial. The crime would have been yours, not mine, if she had been sacrificed. Why didn’t you put the poison into my ice-cream? Why didn’t you invite me to a banquet of arsenic, strychnia, and hydrocyanic acid? Doctor, you are a cowardly bungler, worthy the contempt of all decent assassins. I commend to your attention De Quincey ‘On Murder considered as one of the Fine Arts.’” “Mr. Birch, you are sarcastic,” said Dr. Lynch, with a labored grin, which looked like the sepulchral smile of the staring skull that lay on a shelf in the office. “I am nothing, if I am not more than that.” “Your words insinuate that I have been guilty of something wrong.” “Do they insinuate it? Don’t they charge it as plainly as words can express human thought? I say, directly and unequivocally, that you have attempted to poison me.” “Mr. Birch!” exclaimed the doctor, springing to his feet, throwing back his head, and looking as dignified as a trembling man could look. “I know what you are going to say. Don’t trouble yourself to say it.” “You accuse me of a crime at which the blood of an honest man creeps with horror.” “And for that reason your blood does _not_ creep with horror.” “Mr. Birch, this is hard and cruel of you.” “Don’t whine.” “I speak as an innocent man,” continued the wretch, who, having faced the full force of the accusation, was now beginning to recover from the blow. “You charge me with a crime at which my soul revolts. You do not give me the particulars. You do not furnish me with a particle of evidence as to what you mean, and you ask me to defend myself.” “No, I don’t. More than that, I will furnish no particulars, and I will hear no defence.” “Mr. Birch, this is very harsh, and very unchristian. I should at least be told of what I am suspected,” whined the culprit. “Suspected!” sneered Dick. “You are convicted and condemned.” “Without being heard?” “I have a message to deliver to you from Mr. Hungerford.” “I am ready to hear it.” “He desires me to say that he positively and imperatively forbids your coming to Pine Hill again, under any circumstances that can possibly occur.” “This is very unjust and cruel,” groaned the doctor. “Without a word of explanation, without an opportunity to remove any unfavorable appearance that may be urged against me!”