feelings were chafed to the utmost already. This remark
destroyed entirely the little self-control that remained. He sprang
toward Westfield, and would have grappled his throat, had not his
friend, who had feared some such result, been perfectly on his
guard, and stepped between the two men in time to prevent a
collision.

Nothing was now left W---- but to withdraw, with his friend. A
challenge to mortal combat followed immediately. A meeting was the
result, in which Westfield was severely wounded. This made public
property of the whole matter; and as public feeling is generally on
the side of whoever is sufferer, quite a favourable impression of
the case began to prevail, grounded upon the denial of Westfield to
the charge of improper intimacy with Mrs. Miller. But this feeling
soon changed. The moment Mrs. Miller heard that Westfield had been
seriously wounded by her brother, she flew to his bedside, and
nursed him with unwearying devotion for three weeks; when he died of
inflammation arising from his wound.

This act sealed her fate: it destroyed all sympathy for her; it was,
in the mind of every one, proof positive of her guilt. When she
returned home, the house was closed against her. An application for
a divorce had already been laid before the legislature; then in
session at Annapolis, and, as the inferential proofs of defection
were strongly corroborated by Mrs. Miller's conduct after the
hostile meeting between Westfield and her brother, the application
was promptly granted, with the provision of five hundred dollars a
year for her support. The decision of the legislature, with
information of the annual amount settled upon her, were communicated
through the attorney of her husband. Her only answer was a prompt
and indignant refusal to accept the support the law had awarded her.
From that moment she sank into obscurity with her child, and with
her own hands earned the bread that sustained both their lives. From
that moment until the day of her death, all intercourse with her
family and friends was cut off. How great were her sufferings, no
one can know. They must have been nearly up to the level of human
endurance.

I learned this much from one who had been intimate with all the
circumstances. He remembered the duel very well, but had never
before understood the true cause. My informant had no knowledge
whatever of Mrs. Miller from the time of her divorce up to the
period of my inquiries. Miller himself st