ct, overwhelmed for the moment with
consternation and despair,--not the prospect of death, but of a
degradation far worse to the proud spirit of the Kentucky gentleman,
on whose good name even political hatred had never been able to fix a
stain.

The terrified negroes carried the alarm to the nearest neighbors, and
soon the report of this appalling occurrence was flying like lightning
toward the utmost bounds of the county. The first stranger who reached
the scene of death was Mr. Summers, formerly an intimate friend of
Captain Wilde. When he entered the room, he found the poor gentleman
on his knees beside the body of his child, with his face buried in the
bed-clothes. At the sound of footsteps he raised his wild, tearless
eyes, exclaiming, "My God! my God! Mr. Summers, my wife has been
murdered here, in my own room, and it will be laid on me!" Shocked by
the almost insane excitement of his old friend, and sensible of the
imprudence of his words, Summers begged him to compose himself, pointing
out the danger of such language. But the terrible thought had mastered
his mind with a monomaniacal power, and to every effort at consolation
from those who successively came in the only reply was, "Oh, my God,
it will all be laid upon me!" Fortunately, those who heard these
expressions were old friends, who, although they had been long
unfamiliar, knew the native uprightness of the man, and still felt
kindly toward one whose estrangement they knew was the effect of weak
submission to the dictation of his wife, not the result of any change in
his own feelings. They regarded his wild words as only the incoherent
utterances of a mind bewildered by horror, and were anxious to put an
end to the harrowing scene, and remove the stricken man as soon as
possible from the observation of a mixed crowd that was now rapidly
assembling from all directions, many of whom knew Captain Wilde only
in his unpopular capacity of exciseman, and would therefore be apt to
suspect a darker explanation of his strange behavior.

So shocking had been the sight presented to their eyes, on entering
the room, that hitherto no one had had sufficient presence of mind to
examine the bodies closely; but at last Mr. Summers, cooler than the
rest, approached to raise that of Mrs. Wilde, and then, for the first
time, perceived the bandage about her neck. It proved to be _a white
silk neckerchief_, which Summers removed and began to examine. As he
did so, his face w