"I declare, you're as helpless as a baby!" she said, contemptuously. "There! Is that the book?"
I read the first lines on the title-page-A COMPLETE REPORT OF THE TRIAL OF EUSTACE MACALLAN.
I stopped and looked up at her. She started back from me with a scream of terror. I looked down again at the title-page, and read the next lines-FOR THE ALLEGED POISONING OF HIS WIFE.
There, God's mercy remembered me. There the black blank of a swoon swallowed me up.