"She trembled as she said this, and instinctively drew nearer my
side so that our heads almost touched over the flickering flame from
whose heat and light we sought courage. She seemed to feel grateful
for this contact, and the next minute, flinging all her scruples to
the wind, she began a relation of events which more or less answered
my late unwelcome queries.
"The death in the library, about which her most perplexing memory
hung, took place when she was a child and her father held that high
governmental position which has reflected so much credit upon the
family. Her father and the man who thus perished had been intimate
friends. They had fought together in the War of 1812 and received
the same distinguishing marks of presidential approval afterward.
They were both members of an important commission which brought them
into diplomatic relations with England. It was while serving on this
commission that the sudden break occurred which ended all intimate
relations between them,, and created a change in her father that was
equally remarked at home and abroad. What occasioned this break no
one knew. Whether his great ambition had received some check through
the jealousy of this so-called friend - a supposition which did not
seem possible, as he rose rapidly after this - or on account of other
causes darkly hinted at by his contemporaries, but never breaking
into open gossip, he was never the same man afterwards.
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