hat I must suffer again for my
matrimonial monomania.

It was just after dinner when I was arrested, and the examination, which
was a long one, continued till evening. Every one in the magistrate's
office was tired out with it, I especially, and so I took a favorable
opportunity to leave the premises. I bolted for the door, ran down
stairs into the street, and was well out of town before the astonished
magistrate, stunned constable, and amazed spectators realized that I had
gone.

Whether they than set out in pursuit of me I never knew, I only know
they did not catch me. I ran till I came to the house of a farmer whom
I had been attending for some ailment, and hurriedly narrating the
situation, I offered him one hundred dollars if he would secrete me till
the hue and cry was over and I could safely get away. I think he would
have done it from good will, but the hundred dollar bill I offered him
made the matter sure. He put my money into his pocket, and he put me
into a dark closet, not more than five feet square, and locked me in.

I stayed in that man's house, never going out of doors, for more than
three weeks, and did my best to board out my hundred dollars. The day
after my flight the whole neighborhood was searched, that is, the woods,
roads, and adjacent villages. They never thought of looking in a house,
particularly in a house so near the town; and, as I heard from my
protector, they telegraphed and advertised far and near for me.

I anticipated all this, and for this very reason I remained quietly
where I was, in an unsuspected house, and with my dark closet to retire
to whenever any one came in; and gossiping neighbors coming in almost
every hour, kept me in that hole nearly half the time. I heard my own
story told in that house at least fifty times, and in fifty different
ways.

At last, when I thought it was safe, one night my host harnessed up his
horses and carried me some miles on my way to Concord. He drove as far
as he dared, for he wanted to get back home by daylight, so that his
expedition might excite no suspicion. Twenty miles away from Keene he
set me down in the road, and, bidding him "good-bye," I began my march
toward Concord. When I arrived there, almost the first man I saw in the
street was a doctor from Keene. I did not think he saw me, but he did,
as I soon found out, for while I was waiting at the depot to take the
cars to the north, I was arrested.

The Keene doctor owed me a grudge