Why, indeed, might we not feel pity for a woman whose brilliant career had been so suddenly extinguished in misfortune and crime?
Those who had known her so well in Washington might find it impossible to believe that the fascinating woman could have had murder in her heart, and would readily give ear to the current sentimentality about the temporary aberration of mind under the stress of personal calamity.
Senator Dilworthy, was greatly shocked, of course, but he was full of charity for the erring.
"We shall all need mercy," he said.

"Laura as an inmate of my family was a most exemplary female, amiable, affectionate and truthful, perhaps too fond of gaiety, and neglectful of the externals of religion, but a woman of principle.

She may have had experiences of which I am ignorant, but she could not have gone to this extremity if she had been in her own right mind." To the Senator's credit be it said, he was willing to help Laura and her family in this dreadful trial.

She, herself, was not without money, for the Washington lobbyist is not seldom more fortunate than the Washington claimant, and she was able to procure a good many luxuries to mitigate the severity of her prison life.

It enabled her also to have her own family near her, and to see some of them daily.