ich a
reporter had knocked him up out of bed at midnight to give, though how he
found him, Philip never could conjecture.

What some of the journals lacked in suitable length for the occasion,
they made up in encyclopaedic information about other similar murders and
shootings.

The statement from Laura was not full, in fact it was fragmentary, and
consisted of nine parts of, the reporter's valuable observations to one
of Laura's, and it was, as the reporter significantly remarked,
"incoherent", but it appeared that Laura claimed to be Selby's wife,
or to have been his wife, that he had deserted her and betrayed her, and
that she was going to follow him to Europe. When the reporter asked:

"What made you shoot him Miss. Hawkins?"

Laura's only reply was, very simply,

"Did I shoot him? Do they say I shot him?". And she would say no more.

The news of the murder was made the excitement of the day. Talk of it
filled the town. The facts reported were scrutinized, the standing of
the parties was discussed, the dozen different theories of the motive,
broached in the newspapers, were disputed over.

During the night subtle electricity had carried the tale over all the
wires of the continent and under the sea; and in all villages and towns
of the Union, from the Atlantic to the territories, and away up and
down the Pacific slope, and as far as London and Paris and Berlin, that
morning the name of Laura Hawkins was spoken by millions and millions of
people, while the owner of it--the sweet child of years ago, the
beautiful queen of Washington drawing rooms--sat shivering on her cot-bed
in the darkness of a damp cell in the Tombs.

CHAPTER XLVII.

Philip's first effort was to get Harry out of the Tombs. He gained
permission to see him, in the presence of an officer, during the day,
and he found that hero very much cast down.

"I never intended to come to such a place as this, old fellow," he said
to Philip; "it's no place for a gentleman, they've no idea how to treat a
gentleman. Look at that provender," pointing to his uneaten prison
ration. "They tell me I am detained as a witness, and I passed the night
among a lot of cut-throats and dirty rascals--a pretty witness I'd be in
a month spent in such company."

"But what under heavens," asked Philip, "induced you to come to New York
with Laura! What was it for?"

"What for? Why, she wanted me to come. I didn't know anything about
that cursed Selby.