Then a rich Glasgow merchant, Mr. Minnock, saw Madeleine, and was greatly enamoured of her. Early in January, 1857, he offered her marriage, and she became engaged to him. It was necessary, now, to break with l'Angelier, and, mindful of the old adage to be off with the old love before she took on with the new, she wrote to him, begging him to return her letters and her portrait. L'Angelier positively refused to give them or her up. He had told many friends of his connection with Madeleine Smith, and some of them had now advised him to let her go. "No; I will never surrender the letters, nor, so long as I live, shall she marry another man." On the 9th of February he wrote her a letter, which must have been full of upbraiding, and probably of threats, but it has not been preserved. Madeleine must have been greatly terrified by it, too, for her reply was a frantic appeal for mercy, for a chivalrous silence as to their past relations which he was evidently incapable of preserving. She was in despair, entirely in the hands of this mean ruffian, who was determined not to spare her; she saw all hope of a good marriage fading away, and nothing but ignominious exposure before her.
As the result of the trial, when by-and-by she was arraigned for the murder of l'Angelier, was a verdict of "Not Proven," it is hardly right to say that she now resolved to rid herself of the man who possessed her guilty secret. But that was the case for the prosecution, the basis of the charge brought against her. She had made up her mind, as it seemed, to extreme measures. She appeared to be reconciled with l'Angelier, and had several interviews with him. What passed at these meetings of the 11th and 12th of February was never positively known, but on the 19th he was seized with a mysterious and terrible illness, being found lying on the floor of his bedroom writhing in pain, and likely to die. He did, in fact, recover, but those who knew him said he was never the same man again. He seems to have had some suspicion of Madeleine, for he told a friend that a cup of chocolate had made him sick, but said he was so much fascinated by her that he would forgive her even if she poisoned him, and that he would never willingly give her up.