Caleb was most high spirited those days, for the line in regard to the progress of Steve’s work was in truth an understatement if anything, even though the assurance of his happiness might have been called a misconstruance of facts.

‘The suspicious circumstances which invest him, will be found to tally much better with my hypothesis of romantic busy-bodyism, than with the reasoner's suggestion of guilt.’

Luster claimed that the women had consented to sex and were only pretending to be asleep.

The idea of excusing the self-killer by attributing to him the fictitious malady called insanity was invented as a tactic for the merciful treatment of his survivors.