absence of Captain S., the prisoner's face brightened up, and he leaned over the dock and whispered to me: 'They will have to clear me now. They can bring no proof against my alibi.'

The lodging-house keeper was recalled. He was sure that it was eleven o'clock, perhaps a little later, when the prisoner came in. He (the prisoner) had originally maintained that he was in bed by ten.

'Where were you before eleven?' the District-Attorney asked. 'It was quite possible that this robbery should be committed at an early hour of the evening.'

'You need not answer this question if it will criminate you,' said I to him, by way of caution.

Will I certainly be discharged if I can give a satisfactory account of myself for the earlier hours of the evening?' he asked me eagerly.

I said, as matters looked then, it was almost certain.

'Then,' said he, with a sudden resolve, 'I will tell you. I was at Mrs.

Thoureau's house!'

'At Mrs. Thoureau's, the widow of the deceased?' said I, looking aghast. The whole court was electrified at the announcement.

'If you will send for the lady she will doubtless bear witness to the fact.' Mrs. T. was immediately sent for. Meantime, my client, in answer to interrogations from the Court, stated that he had been employed in the house of Mrs. T. to repair and polish some pieces of furniture; that the lady had learned something of his poverty, and had kindly given him good advice and means to supply his most pressing necessities, and that on that evening he had called there to get some money due him, and had remained until his return to his lodgings.

Mrs. T. was announced. She corroborated the story of the prisoner in every particular.

'One more question, Mrs. T.,' said the District-Attorney. 'Have you never perchance, in the prisoner's presence, made any allusion to the circumstances and mode of life of your deceased husband?'

'Never, Sir.'

'Do you know if the prisoner was acquainted with Col. T., and familiar with his location and habits?'

'On the contrary, I know that he did not know Col. T., and I don't think he ever saw him.'

There was a silence of a minute's duration. The prisoner looked hopeful. The District-Attorney, who had for some minutes been studying first the face of Mrs. T., and then that of the prisoner, turned suddenly upon the former, and asked: 'What relation does George Gordon, the prisoner, bear to you, Madam ?'

The face of the witness flushed up for a moment, then grew ashy pale. She essayed to speak, but her lips moved without producing any sound. She grasped the table for support, then sank lifeless to the floor. The fainting woman was quickly borne into the fresh air. A physician was called. He ordered her to be conveyed to her home, and pronounced her to be attacked with paralysis. Her presence in court was therefore impossible.

'It was not certain, even, that the poor lady would survive the night through,' said the physician, hastening away after his patient.

'My mother! my poor mother! I killed you!' cried out the prisoner, wringing his hands with anguish, and losing at last all self-control.

His mother? Here was a new complication.

The session of court was adjourned; the prisoner was remanded to his cell. We who had become interested in the case were more puzzled than ever. Was Mrs. Col. T. concerned in the crime which seemed to have been committed? She looked too honest to be aught else than an honest woman. Beside, had she not denied all claim to the estate of the deceased? And yet

The first news I heard when I arose the following morning, was that my client, the prisoner, had made his escape the previous night, disguised in the garments of one of the jailer's assistants, whom he had overpowered when he was locking him in for the night. The escape was not known until some hours after, and I may as well mention here that the poor fellow concealed himself on board a vessel just sailing for Curaçoa, and successfully evaded pursuit. He left a note for me, which was slipped under my office-door during the night. In this he promised a full account of his share in the mysterious transaction as soon as possible, making at the same time most solemn asseverations of his entire innocence of the supposed murder, and stating that he never knew Col. T. as such, or by any other name, having only on two occasions accidentally met him, one of these being on the evening of the rain. Hence I recollected his voice.

Two days thereafter we were agreeably surprised at the reäppearance of the missing Captain Snyder. From him was now obtained finally an explanation of the mystery which had so long excited the attention of the few who knew of it. I will give the Captain's account in as few words as possible:

Mrs. Thoureau was the daughter of a Louisiana planter. She was educated at a Northern boarding-school. Being of a romantic temperament, at the age of seventeen, she fell in love with an individual who occupied in the institution in which she found a home, the post of instructor in rhetoric. This man was possessed of a showy figure and considerable personal grace, but was at the same time entirely devoid of principle. Seeing the artless young girl's infatuation, he pretended to return her affection. The result of the amour was a child, born but a month before its mother was to leave her school for home. Her shame was known to but three persons the seducer, who fled when the fruits of his crime became apparent, and the two maiden ladies who owned and carried on the school. Alarmed at the consequences to their establishment should Emily's misfortune become known, they aided her in concealing her shame, and when she was safely delivered of a male child, provided a home for that in a distant farm-house, where its origin would not be inquired into so long as the means for its support were forthcoming. The poor mother asked vainly for her infant. It was only upon her solemn promise never to seek for it in any manner, that the two maiden principals of the academy consented to preserve inviolate the secret of her shame.

When fully recovered, she returned to her Southern home. Here, after five

years spent in quiet repentance and the exemplary performance of the real duties of life for the young girl had sinned through weakness, not for love of sin she met Col. Thoureau. There was a mutual attraction. He saw in her quiet, grave but kindly demeanor and the conscientious rectitude of all her actions the embodied ideal of his soul. She found in the frank, noble gentleman all those real qualities whose sham semblance had deceived her young heart to so fatal an error. Fancy her anguish when the Colonel spoke his love, and asked her to return it. Her eyes brightened for a moment, but in the next appeared before her mind's eye her sin and shame, and with tears and sobs she hurried unanswering from the presence of her lover.

'Could she tell him all? Him who had loved her as a being all purity and innocence. And yet dared she wed herself to any one, keeping to herself that dread secret which drove happiness away from her? What bitter struggles, what vain resolves, what tears and prayers were hers it were vain here to attempt to tell. Suffice it that, submitting to her lover's persistent entreaties, she became his but without that frank confession of her single error, which might have made her a happy woman, and would certainly have made her an honest one.

The marriage was a happy one. Emily- now Mrs. Col. T.- had been informed that the fruit of her error had disappeared was probably dead. Her seducer was a wandering profligate, living in a distant part of the country. Was she not safe? She thought so; and ventured to enjoy a few years of truest bless. Her father died. Her mother was long since dead. Of brothers or sisters she had none. Her husband was all to her, and she devoted herself to his happiness.

Who knows the abyss upon whose brink he stands! Emily's seducer, ever going down-hill on the broad road of vice, was mastered by necessities which must be supplied at all hazards. He applied by letter to his former victim, coolly stating his needs, and desiring relief at her hands. The wretched lady was forced to parley with the villain, and from her own means satisfy his demands, vainly hoping and entreating that she might be left in peace.

Vain hope it was! So good an opportunity for spoils was not to be given up. Again and again she submitted to his demands, enforced by threats of exposure. And when at last, rendered desperate by the growing audacity of the villain, she refused to hold farther communication with him, there came one day, directed to her husband, a package containing old letters and tokens, which proved but too clearly the guilt which the sender alleged.

At this time the unhappy pair were residing in our city, whither Mrs. T. had induced her husband to remove, in the vain hope of eluding the clutches of the villain who was torturing her. The Colonel, who tenderly loved his wife, compromised with the quondam Professor on such terms as were likely to insure his future silence, then made separate provision for his wife, and thus they parted, both unhappy.

Anxious to secure from want the woman whom he still loved, the Colonel had finally hit upon the expedient of insuring his life, determined while he lived to have her comfort looked after, and by securing her a sum after his

death, to place her beyond necessities of any kind. He effected the insurance in good faith. But a month thereafter he was once more made unhappy by a threatening letter from the brute who had destroyed his peace. This affected him much. He wrote to the wretch-who shall be nameless here. and by dint of a considerable sum of money, gained from him a written obligation to leave America, never to return. But to complete the Colonel's distress, the sum he had payed his persecutor was spent at the gambling-table, and the miscreant now refused to depart without an additional subsidy.

He was

His foster

Meantime, Emily's son had grown up to be a stout young man. apprenticed to a steam-boat builder, on one of the Western rivers. mother died, and on her death-bed revealed to him the secret of his birth, and the place of residence of his mother. Animated by a desire to see her to whom he owed his life, he raked together his little means and at once proceeded to C. He called upon Mrs. T., and upon telling the poor lady his story, was received by her with a joy and love which he little expected. Both felt the necessity of preserving secret the bond existing between them; and the poor mother never, even to her son, revealed those particulars of her life, which we have but just glanced at. He thought her a widow; and little suspected that her husband lived in the same city with her.

Now, on his first coming to the city, (he had actually come around by ship from New-Orleans, instead of over-land, as he asserted on his trial,) he had fallen among thieves, and was robbed and nearly murdered by a part of his former ship-mates. Col. T. coming up just as he was about to be overcome by his assailants, had dispersed these and taken the poor lad home to dress his 'bruises, little suspecting the tragic connection of their fates.

A few days thereafter,' continued Captain Snyder, who, I must admit, proved himself an acute and courageous man on this occasion, and who had brought all parts of this strange story together, 'Jeremiah Randall, the Professor before mentioned, made another demand upon Colonel Thoureau. He was desperate. So was the poor Colonel. He had seen a considerable part of his fortune slip into this miscreant's hands, to be wasted in all manner of low dissipation. He lived in abject terror of this fellow's indiscretions. Many a time must the poor hunted Colonel have thought longingly of the gallows which was waiting for this 'Professor,' and through all it seems certain that the good gentleman loved with his whole heart his unfortunate wife. If only he had had the wisdom to own this love, to take her to his bosom, and to fly with her out of reach of this defamer! But it was not to be so.

'What I am now about to relate,' continued Captain Snyder, 'I have literrally choked out of the infernal rascal whom I caught so snugly in Poydrasstreet, New-Orleans, and who is now lodged in the tightest cell in our prison. Blast him! I did not want to forestall the hangman, or my hands would have held him till his wind was gone!' And the Captain showed a hand which I should not like to feel at my throat. 'You must know, then, that my poor friend appointed a meeting for that fatal Thursday night, when he and the 'Professor' were to have a final settlement. As the hour was a late one, he sent to the Professor' the key of the house and a duplicate night-key, and at

eleven Randall came up silently and found the Colonel waiting for him. He says the Colonel cursed him, which I can believe; and threatened his life, which is a cowardly lie; and that while they talked, suddenly there was a scuffle, in which he got Thoureau down. That then he (Randall) felt that blood was about to be spilled. He looked for a pistol and did not see one. He had only a piece of stout packing-twine in his pocket, and he owned to me, the infernal scoundrel!' hissed Snyder in our horrified ear, that he tied the Colonel's feet as he held him down, then his arms, gagged him, and then laying him upon the bed, deliberately cut his throat with his own razor! After which he took three hours of moon-light to arrange the room, whose general disposition he well knew, for he had received money there frequently, and then he went out bare-footed. But taking a last look at his victim, now lying upon the bed, his feet got inadvertently into the pool of blood, and hence the tracks, which ceased at the outside of the door, where he first discovered them. And the coward did not dare to return to the room after the door was once closed behind him to erase these fatal tracks.'

'And the negro laundress saw him putting on his shoes on the other side of the street, as she came out of the street-door?' I queried.

'Exactly,' said Snyder. 'Poor Mrs. Thoureau, whom I have known and respected for a long time, called for me after the Colonel's burial, and with many tears, told me not only her own sad story, but also her suspicions as to the author of her husband's death. She put me upon the track to find him, and I scarce slept till I had him before a revolver, with part of a confession upon his cowardly lips. Thank the Devil! they hang people for murder in this State. If they did n't, I should have killed this brute myself.'

And that was the solution of a mystery which had puzzled us all a good deal.

Professor Jeremiah Randall was hanged. I saw him swing. I shall never go to see another man hanged. It is too horrid.

Poor Mrs. Thoureau lingered on for a few weeks, but her system, enfeebled by much mental distress, finally succumbed to paralysis, and she died before Randall was hung. Her ill-fated son I have never seen since. Three days ago I received a note inclosing a hundred dollars, and a few words, saying: 'Once you defended me when I had no friends. Many thanks.' This brought the story to my mind which is told above. Names and dates are somewhat altered, but for the rest, any lawyer of ten years' standing, in our district, will tell you of the remarkable murder of Colonel Thoureau.