the murder. The accounts in the evening papers were only the premonitory
drops to this mighty shower. The scene was dramatically worked up in
column after column. There were sketches, biographical and historical.
There were long "specials" from Washington, giving a full history of
Laura's career there, with the names of men with whom she was said to be
intimate, a description of Senator Dilworthy's residence and of his
family, and of Laura's room in his house, and a sketch of the Senator's
appearance and what he said. There was a great deal about her beauty,
her accomplishments and her brilliant position in society, and her
doubtful position in society. There was also an interview with Col.
Sellers and another with Washington Hawkins, the brother of the
murderess. One journal had a long dispatch from Hawkeye, reporting the
excitement in that quiet village and the reception of the awful
intelligence.

All the parties had been "interviewed." There were reports of
conversations with the clerk at the hotel; with the call-boy; with the
waiter at table with all the witnesses, with the policeman, with the
landlord (who wanted it understood that nothing of that sort had ever
happened in his house before, although it had always been frequented by
the best Southern society,) and with Mrs. Col. Selby. There were
diagrams illustrating the scene of the shooting, and views of the hotel
and street, and portraits of the parties. There were three minute and
different statements from the doctors about the wounds, so technically
worded that nobody could understand them. Harry and Laura had also been
"interviewed" and there was a statement from Philip himself, which 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,