iend. This is all
that, as a dying man, I can do or say. May heaven right the
innocent! HENRY WESTFIELD."

Besides the paper in the handwriting of Mrs. Miller, which I have
given, there were many more, evidently written at various times, but
all shortly after her separation from her husband. They imbodied
many touching allusions to her condition, united with firm
expressions of her entire innocence of the imputation under which
she lay. One sentiment particularly arrested my attention, and
answered the question that constantly arose in my mind, as to why
she did not attempt, by means of Westfield's dying asseveration, to
establish her innocence. It was this:--

"He has prejudged me guilty and cast me off without seeing me or
giving me a hearing, and then insulted me by a legislative tender of
five hundred dollars a year. Does he think that I would save myself,
even from starvation, by means of his bounty? No--no--he does not
know the woman he has wronged."

After going over the entire contents of the casket, I replaced them,
and sent the whole to Mr. Miller, with a brief note, stating that
they had come into my possession in rather a singular manner, and
that I deemed it but right to transmit them to him. Scarcely half an
hour had elapsed from the time my messenger departed, before Miller
himself entered my office, pale and agitated. I had met him a few
times before, and had a slight acquaintance with him.

"This is from you, I believe, doctor?" he said, holding up the note
I had written him.

I bowed.

"How did you come in possession of the casket you sent me?" he
continued as he took the chair I handed him.

I was about replying, when he leaned over toward me, and laying his
hand upon my arm, said, eagerly--

"First tell me, is the writer of its contents living?"

"No," I replied; "she has been dead over two years."

His countenance fell, and he seemed, for some moments, as if his
heart had ceased to beat. "Dead!" he muttered to himself--"dead! and
I have in my hands undoubted proofs of her innocence."

The expression of his face became agonizing.

"Oh, what would I not give if she were yet alive," he continued,
speaking to himself. "Dead--dead--I would rather be dead with her
than living with my present consciousness."

"Doctor," said he, after a pause, speaking in a firmer voice, "let
me know how those papers came into your hands?" I related, as
rapidly as I could, what the reader already knows abo