Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1885-09-24

tanned liquor colorless and oaorless
Mrs. Hurd was watching him with
her heart in her throat, for she told
me that she felt the decisive moment
had come. There was something IL
the gray pallor of the doctors rigi6
face that told her of desperate par
pose in the mans soul.
He lifted the glass to the right OF
the tray and gave it to his wife.
Drink it DEAR" he said. Its a
panacea for all evils. I am also gois g
to take a glass of it" and he pointed
to the glass still on the tray.
Mrs. Spencer accepted it and was
putting 1t to her lips, when Mrs. Hurd
interrupted.
eff you will bring her a tumbler OF
water, doctor. Mrs. Spencer complains
that the cordial leaves bad taste in
her mouth, and my old bones are full
of rheumatism that it nearly kills me
to go down stairs"
The doctor turned and bent on her
a look as though he meant to read her
through. But she kept her face pas
sive. If he had any suspicious her
manner quieted them, and putting
down the glass he left the room. Then
Mrs. Hurd changed the position of the
glasses.
When he came back--and he
was gone but a moment-the nurse
stood exactly where he had eft her,
and Mrs. Spencer was lying back in
her chair with her eyes closed.
Again he lifted the glass; this time
it was the one intended for himself,
and placed it at the lips of lis wife.
She swallowed the contents, drank a
little of the water he had brought her,
and thanked him in her own sad
sweet way.
"Now for my own cordial" he said,
with affected gayety. 81 indulge in
something a little stronger as he
spoke he tossed off the mixture
cit made me stone cold to my
fingers end to see him do it," said
Mrs. Hurd, relating the circumstances
to me, "but as heaven is my witness,
[ felt no conscience. I argued like
this. If it was simply cordial, it
would do no harm. If it was poison,
his blood would be on his own sinful
head"
He went to bed half an hour after
wards, complaining OF fatigue. In
the morning they found him dead.
[ was called to the post mortem ex-
animation, and we discovered in the
stomach of the deceased q sufficient
quantity of the deadly poison known
to modern science to kill half-a- dozen
men.
My brother physicians agreed that
the man was insane. and had probably
taken the dose in one of bis unsettled
fits of mind. i did not dispute them,
but even before Mrs. Hurd told her
story, [ had my own theory as to the
cause of his death.
There was no public exposure, how
ever. Mrs. Hurd and I agreed that it
would profit no one to make the ST
fair public, and SO we kept our own
counsel.
Miss Melrose, in spite of nay con-
victicn that she had an active part in
the conspiracy against Mrs. Spencer's
life, could not help plying. Sach a
miserable, worn and haggard face as
hers [ have never seen, and when they
buried DR.. Spencer. she was conf ned
to her bed with brain fever.
I attended her in her illness, but
though she recovered in health, she
was never herself again. *She was a
harmless maniac, whose delight was
III gathering flowers and decorating
the doctors grave with them.
She is living still, and still gathers
flowers and lays them on that crave,
singing to herself low incarnation,
which no one ever pretends to under
stand.
Not until Mrs. Spencer had many
days been my wife, and the faithful
Mrs. Hurd had slept under the volets
did Alice know the perfidity O her
former husband.
And when I told her, after the first
shock was over she crept into myarms
and whispered:
'But if it had not been for james
crime I should not have found you,
Herbert. So good does sometimes
come out of evil"