Ungentlemanly conduct, I am afraid we must admit;
but, to all outward appearance, the riding-whip produced the most
astonishing results. From that moment the lady submitted as she
had never submitted before. For a fortnight afterward he did what
he liked, and she never thwarted him; he said what he liked,
and she never uttered a word of protest. Some men might have
suspected this sudden reformation of hiding something dangerous
under the surface. Whether Mr. Waldron looked at it in that
light, I can't tell you. All that is known is that, before the
mark of the whip was off his wife's face, he fell ill, and that
in two days afterward he was a dead man. What do you say to
that?"
"I say he deserved it!" answered Mr. Bashwood, striking his hand
excitedly on the table, as his son paused and looked at him.
"The doctor who attended the dying man was not of your way of
thinking," remarked Bashwood the younger, dryly. "He called in
two other medical men, and they all three refused to certify the
death. The usual legal investigation followed. The evidence of
the doctors and the evidence of the servants pointed irresistibly
in one and the same direction; and Mrs.
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