Note 117 — Chapter VI

“I have already shown,” said the Dean, “how constantly she repeated to him her warning that on no account he was to make the slightest noise of any kind. Therefore, without previous arrangement, it does not appear to me possible for these parties to have met on the occasion on which the prosecutor says they did. If I am right in reading that letter, she expected him on Saturday evening, and she waited and waited, as she had upon Thursday, but he did not come. On the Sunday evening she did not expect him. Why should she? When he did not come on Thursday evening, when he did not come on Saturday evening, why should she expect him on the following evening? Well, then, that is the state in which her expectations were on that occasion, and her conduct precisely squares with it. She is at home in the family. They are all at prayers at nine o’clock. The servants come up to attend prayers with the family. Mackenzie, the suitor of Haggart, remains below while the family are at prayers. The servants afterwards go down stairs to bed, as usual—one after the other. The family then retire to rest, and the prisoner, with her youngest sister, goes to her bedroom about half-past ten or eleven. They both get into bed about the same time; and, so far as human knowledge can go, that house is undisturbed and unapproached till the prisoner is lying in the morning side by side with her sister, as she had fallen asleep. The watchman was on his beat—he knew L’Angelier well—and he saw nothing.”