“ ‘Deceased impressed me as a rather melancholy, low-spirited gentleman. He was very much troubled about his eyesight and mentioned the matter to me on several occasions. He told me that he was practically blind in one eye and that the sight of the other was failing rapidly. He said that this afflicted him greatly, because his only pleasure in life was in the reading of books, and that if he could not read he should not wish to live. On another occasion he said that “to a blind man life was not worth living.”

“ ‘On the twelfth of last November he came to the lodge with a paper in his hand which he said was his will’⁠—But I needn’t read that,” said Marchmont, turning over the leaf, “I’ve told you how the will was signed and witnessed. We will pass on to the day of poor Jeffrey’s death.