My father had gone to Nashville, intending to re-
turn the next afternoon. Something prevented his
accomplishing the business in hand, so he returned
on the same night, arriving just before the dawn.
In his testimony before the coroner he explained
that having no latchkey and not caring to disturb the
sleeping servants, he had, with no clearly defined
intention, gone round to the rear of the house. As he
turned an angle of the building, he heard a sound as
of a door gently closed, and saw in the darkness, in-
distinctly, the figure of a man, which instantly dis-
appeared among the trees of the lawn. A hasty pur-
suit and brief search of the grounds in the belief
that the trespasser was some one secretly visiting
a servant proving fruitless, he entered at the un-
locked door and mounted the stairs to my mother's
chamber. Its door was open, and stepping into black
darkness he fell headlong over some heavy object
on the floor. I may spare myself the details; it was
my poor mother, dead of strangulation by human
hands!
Nothing had been taken from the house, the serv-
ants had heard no sound, and excepting those ter-
rible finger-marks upon the dead woman's throat--
dear God! that I might forget them!--no trace of
the assassin was ever found.
I gave up my studies and remained with my
father, who, naturally, was greatly changed. Always
of a sedate, taciturn disposition, he now fell into so
deep a dejection that nothing could hold his atten-
tion, yet anything--a footfall, the sudden closing
of a door--aroused in him a fitful interest; one
might have called it an apprehension.
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