According to Sir John Bell's account, it was from his lips that I first learned that my wife was suffering from a peculiarly dangerous ailment.

Yet, in his report of the conversation that followed between us, which he gave practically verbatim, I had not expressed a single word of surprise and sorrow at this dreadful intelligence, which to an affectionate husband would be absolutely overwhelming.

As it had been proved by the evidence of the nurse and elsewhere that my relations with my young wife were those of deep affection, this struck him as a circumstance so peculiar that he was inclined to think that in this particular Sir John's memory must be at fault.
There was, however, a wide difference between assuming that a portion of the conversation had escaped a witness's memory and disbelieving all that witness's evidence.

As the counsel for the Crown had said, if he had not, as he swore, warned me, and I had not, as he swore, refused to listen to his warning, then Sir John Bell was a moral monster.

That he, Sir John, at the beginning of my career in Dunchester had shown some prejudice and animus against me was indeed admitted.