as
possible to alleviate the suffering of that mother, I did most
faithfully. Under my personal superintendence she was made comfortable
in the hospital; and I stood by her side when Doctor--operated on the
aneurism; but her impaired constitution could not bear the strain, and
she sank rapidly. She was delirious, and never knew why her daughter
was detained; because I withheld the note. Just before the end came,
her mind cleared, and she wrote a few lines which I sent to the
prisoner. From all that I know of Miss Brentano, I feel constrained to
say, she impressed me as one of the purest, noblest and most admirable
characters I have ever met. She supported her mother and herself by her
pencil, and a more refined, sensitive woman, a more tenderly devoted
daughter I have yet to meet."

"Does your acquaintance with the family suggest any third party, who
would be interested in Gen'l Darrington's will, or become a beneficiary
by its destruction?"

"No. They seemed very isolated people; those two women lived without
any acquaintances, as far as I know, and apared proudly indifferent to
the outside world. I do not think they had any relatives, and the only
name I heard Mrs. Brentano utter in her last illness was,
'Ignace,--Ignace.' She often spoke of her'darling,' and her 'good
little girl'."

"Did you see a gentleman who visited the prisoner? Did you ever hear
she had a lover?"

"I neither saw any gentleman, nor heard she had a lover. In January, I
received a letter from the prisoner enclosing an order on S--& E--,
photographers of New York, for the amount due her, on a certain design
for a Christmas card, which had received the Boston first prize of
three hundred dollars. With the permission of the Court, I should like
to read it. There is no objection?"

"PENITENTIARY CELL, JANUARY 8TH

"In the name of my dead, whom I shall soon join--I desire to thank you,
dear Doctor Grantlin, for your kind care of my darling; and especially
for your delicate and tender regard for all that remains on earth of my
precious mother. The knowledge that she was treated with the reverence
due to a lady, that she was buried--not as a pauper, but sleeps her
last sleep under the same marble roof that shelters your dear departed
ones, is the one ray of comfort that can ever pierce the awful gloom
that has settled like a pall over me. I am to be tried soon for the
black and horrible crime I never committed; and the evidence is so
strong ag