His Other Wife: A Novel — page 336: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

325 FATHER LOUIS’ EXPERIMENT. As soon as the kid was removed, a faint, sickening aroma reached the olfactories of the nearest bystanders. When the stopple was lifted, the whole court-room was redolent of an odor like burning cotton. Father Louis refitted the stopple, tied up and replaced the vial in its casket. He then caused a light spray from an atomizer that he had at hand to ascend into the air. It was a simple solution of scented ammonia, which, with the strong current of fresh air passing through the house, soon destroyed the subtle odor of the oil, and left the atmosphere sweet and pure, with perhaps the faintest tinge of the fragrant evaporation from the atomizer. Mr. Craig then produced from a parcel upon the table before him a singularly-shaped crystal flask, from which he had unwrapped some dark tissue paper, and a small piece of surgeon’s sponge, also well wrapped in oil silk. These he handed to the witness, saying : ‘Would you be able to swear to any peculiar odor about these articles?” Father Louis held the sponge, then the vial, to his nostrils. Before he made any attempt to answer Mr. Craig’s question, the judge said: ‘“Mr. Cathcart, have you ever seen those articles before ?” ‘““No; never till this moment,” replied the priest, promptly. : ‘* You will now answer Mr. Craig’s question.” ‘There is no sort of hesitation in my mind about the =) comicbhooks-co Mm