case. The chairman, whom I knew well, very kindly asked me if I did not
wish for legal assistance. I replied, "No, I have nothing to defend,"
which he seemed to think a hard saying, at any rate he looked surprised.
On the other side counsel were employed nominally on behalf of the
Crown, although in reality the prosecution, which in such a case was
unusual if not unprecedented, had been set on foot and undertaken by the
Colford family.

The "information" was read by the clerk, in which I was charged with
culpable negligence and wilfully doing certain things that caused the
death of Blanche Colford. I stood there in the dock listening, and
wondering what possible evidence could be adduced against me in support
of such a charge. After the formal witnesses, relations and doctors, who
testified to my being called in to attend on Lady Colford, to the course
of the illness and the cause of death, etc., Sir John Bell was called.
"Now," I thought to myself, "this farce will come to an end, for Bell
will explain the facts."

The counsel for the prosecution began by asking Sir John various
questions concerning the terrible malady known as puerperal fever, and
especially with reference to its contagiousness. Then he passed on to
the events of the day when I was called in to attend upon Lady Colford.
Sir John described how he had visited my late wife, and, from various
symptoms which she had developed somewhat suddenly, to his grief and
surprise, had come to the conclusion that she had fallen victim to
puerperal fever. This evidence, to begin with, was not true, for
although he suspected the ailment on that afternoon he was not sure of
it until the following morning.

"What happened then, Sir John?" asked the counsel.