Standing quite near her, he gravely related, with emphatic distinctness and careful detail, his first meeting with the prisoner on the piazza at Elm Bluff, and the vivid impression she left on his mind; his return to Elm Bluff about half-past nine the same evening, in order to get a deed which he had forgotten to put into his pocket at the first visit.  Learning that General Darrington had not yet retired for the night, he sent in to ask for the deed, and was summoned “to come and get it himself.”  On entering the bedroom, he found his client wrapped in a cashmere dressing-gown, and sitting in an easy chair by the window, which opened on the north or front piazza.  He appeared much perturbed and harassed, and in reply to inquiries touching his health, answered that he was “completely shaken up, and unnerved, by a very stormy and disagreeable interview held that afternoon with the child of his wayward daughter Ellice.  “When witness asked:  “Did not the great beauty of the embassadress accomplish the pardon and restoration of the erring mother?” General Darrington had struck his cane violently on the floor, and exclaimed:  “Don’t talk such infernal nonsense!  Did you ever hear of my pardoning a wrong against my family name and honor?  Does any man live, idiotic enough to consider me so soft-hearted?  No, no.  On the contrary, I was harsh to the girl; so harsh that she turned upon me, savage as a strong cub defending a crippled helpless dam.  They know now that the last card has been played, and the game ended; for I gave her distinctly to understand that at my death, Prince would inherit every iota of my estate, and that my will had cut them off without a cent.  I meant it then, I mean it now.  I swear that lowborn fiddler’s brood shall never darken these doors; but somehow, I am unable to get rid of the strange, disagreeable sensation the girl left behind her, as a farewell legacy.  She stood there at that glass door, and raised her hand like a prophetess.  ’General Darrington, when you lie down to die, may God have more mercy on your poor soul than you have shown to your suffering child.’”

Witness advised him to go to bed, and sleep off the unpleasant recollections of the day, but he said it was so oppressively hot, he wanted to sit at the window, which was wide open.  Witness having secured the deed, which was on the table in the room, bade his client good-night, and left the house.

He was riding toward town, and thought it was about ten o’clock, when he saw the prisoner sitting under a pine tree near the road, and not more than a half a mile from the bridge over the “Branch” that runs at the foot of Elm Bluff.  His horse had shied and plunged at sight of her, and, the moonlight being bright as day, witness easily recognized her as the same person he had seen earlier in the afternoon.  Thinking her appearance there at that hour was rather mysterious, he asked her if she had lost her way; to which she replied “No, sir.”  On the following morning, when the mournful news of the murder of General Darrington had convulsed the entire community with grief and horror, witness had smothered his reluctance to proceed against a woman, and a solemn sense of duty forced him to bring these suspicious circumstances to the knowledge of the District Solicitor.