sensation. But the thing that horrified him was the fact that his wife
had been arrested for his murder. His first impulse was to go to her at
once, but he next thought it better to read what the paper said about
the matter, so as to become possessed of all the facts. The headlines,
he said to himself, often exaggerated things, and there was a
possibility that the body of the article would not bear out the naming
announcement above it. But as he read on and on, the situation seemed
to become more and more appalling. He saw that his friends had been
suspicious of his sudden death, and had insisted on a post-mortem
examination. That examination had been conducted by three of the most
eminent physicians of Cincinnati, and the three doctors had practically
agreed that the deceased, in the language of the verdict, had come to
his death through morphia poisoning, and the coroner's jury had brought
in a verdict that "the said William Brenton had been poisoned by some
person unknown." Then the article went on to state how suspicion had
gradually fastened itself upon his wife, and at last her arrest had been
ordered. The arrest had taken place that day.

[Illustration: Mrs. Brenton.]

After reading this, Brenton was in an agony of mind. He pictured his
dainty and beautiful wife in a stone cell in the city prison. He foresaw
the horrors of the public trial, and the deep grief and pain which
the newspaper comments on the case would cause to a woman educated and
refined. Of course, Brenton had not the slightest doubt in his own mind
about the result of the trial. His wife would be triumphantly acquitted;
but, all the same, the terrible suspense which she must suffer in the
meanwhile would not be compensated for by the final verdict of the jury.

Brenton at once went to the jail, and wandered through that gloomy