His Other Wife: A Novel — page 316: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

308 ARRAIGNED. down of the nervous tone, which reduces the patient to the pitiable condition of a bed-ridden invalid. During all this, Mr. Croft’s conduct toward his suffering wife is marked by a tender solicitude worthy of the most de- voted husband. ‘‘From his hand the poor sick wife craves and receives the nourishment and prescriptions ordered for her relief, and, finally, as the close of the sad drama approaches, it is he who watches alone beside her pillow through the still hours of the night. Only one human creature—whose testimony cannot under the laws be admitted into this court—divines a treacherous intent beneath all this out- ward devotion. ‘‘Amy, the slave and nurse, suspects, from certain con- ditions in which she finds her mistress after the vigils kept by her master alone, that over-doses of the narcotic must have been administered to cause the deep languor and ‘prostration that succeed Mr. Croft’s attendance at her noc- turnal slumbers. Imbued with this idea, the slave deter- mines to watch unseen in the antechamber, which is in darkness, what quantity of the night-draught is adminis- tered to her mistress. ‘“‘Amy hears the hour appointed for the dose strike from the clock upon Mrs. Croft’s mantel, and, imme- diately after, hears her master propcse the night-draught, hears Mrs. Croft’s affectionate assent to it, and watches while it is prepared in a screened nook formed by the tall bed-head disposed against an angle of the wall. ~ Comicbooks:-co