Evening star., 1933-11-12

possess, and / have not even put In
any restriction, as I had done in
former will made by me, against her
marrying again"
Though the lessons seem to have been
dropped, the friendship continued, and
when the Bartletts went to the seaside
the former teacher and pupil CORE
sponded constantly, and in a letter
Edwin wrote to his Dear George" he
observed incidentally:
1.-The very loving letter you sent Ade-
laide today caused her to overflow with
JOY, as she read it while going along the
street. and afterward as she read it to
me-
And now I must touch on a delicate
point. Edwin Bartlett had always held,
and made no secret of his view, that he
thought every man entitled to two wives
zone for service and one for COM
panionship." That he regarded Adelaide
as companion rather than as wife
was made apparent by the fact that he
was openly delighted to watch close
attachment growing stronger and
stronger between his wife and George
Dyson.
Probably in order to be near one of
his stores which may not have been
going on as well as usual, this man,
so ordinary in every way apart from
his marital life, suddenly decided that
he and his wife should come to London
and live in lodgings for part of the
Winter.
There, after a short time, he fell
grievously i'll, and Adelaide showed her
self touchingly devoted-even to sitting
up every night without taking off her
clothes But after a while Bartlett got
better under the care of a good doctor.
4 MEANWHILE, George came and went
N' as usual, and one day Adelaide
asked him to purchase some chloroform,
which she said she required to soothe
her husband. The young minister
accordingly called at two druggists, and
obtained some chloroform from each
of them, giving his reason for wanting
the dangerous stuff that he wished to
take out some grease spots from his
clothes. He put the two measures of
chloroform into a bottle and gave over
the bottle to Adelaide while they were
out for a walk alone together.
Four days later the Bartletts' landlady
had a talk with her dodgers. Among
other things, they all three discussed
the effects of chloroform; and Mrs
Bartlett observed that her husband was
in the habit of taking sleeping draughts,
and that she sometimes gave him 10
drops of chloroform This statement
was confirmed by Mr.. Bartlett.
At 4 o'clock the next morning-which
happened to be New Year day-Adelaide
reused the house with the fearful news
that she feared her husband had died
suddenly in the night, and she asked
for their doctor to be sent for at once.
So mysterious did his patients sudden
death appear to the doctor that he sug-
geSted poSt-mortem. To this the dead
mans wife eagerly assented, and the
post-mortem resulted in its being proved
that the unfortunate man had died from
a dose of chloroform taken by the
mouth. A bottle of chloroform had
been within reach of Edwin Bartlett's
hand: and as he had been depressed,
and had still complained of good deal
of pain, 1t was supposed he had taken
an overdose of the drug by mistake, in
the hope of securing sleep.
But when the inquest opened a week
later there took place series of
astounding revelations. George Dyson
walked up onto the witness stand and
quietly revealed the fact that Mrs. Bart
lett had asked him to procure some
chloroform unknown to her husband
He further went out of his way to tell in
considerable detail the extraordinary