We returned to New York, and I supposed that Henry had given up all idea of attempting to “prove his innocence;” indeed we had no conversation about the kidnapping affair for several weeks.  But he slipped away from me.  One day I came back to the hotel, and, inquiring for him, was told at the office he had left word for me that he had gone to Belvidere.  A letter from him a day or two afterward confirmed this, to me, unhappy intelligence.  The time was near at hand for his trial, and he had gone and given himself up to the authorities.  He wrote to me again that he had sent word about his situation to his mother-my first and worst wife-and she and his sister were already with him.

Of course it was impossible for me to go there, if there were no other reasons, I was too immediately interested in this affair to be present, and I had no idea of undergoing a trial and a certain conviction for myself.  But I sent down a New York lawyer with one hundred dollars, directing him to employ council there, and to advise and assist as much as he could.  Meanwhile, I remained in New York, anxious, it is true, yet almost certain that it would be impossible, under the circumstances, to convict Henry of the kidnapping for which he was indicted.  He had not even assisted in the affair, and was sure his counsel would be able to so convince the court and jury.

And reviewing the whole matter, now in my cooler moments, this scheme of trying to carry away Sarah’s son, seemed to be as foolish, useless, and mad, as any one of my marrying adventures.  Till I picked him out from among his schoolmates, I had never seen the child at all.  When I started from Port Jervis to go down, as I supposed, into Pennsylvania, I had no more idea of kidnapping the boy than I had of robbing a sheep-fold.  It was only when the landlord at Water Gap told me that Sarah had remarried, and was wedded to a worthless, drunken husband, that I conceived the plan of removing the boy from such associations.  I was going to bring him up in a respectable manner.  Alas!  I did not succeed even in bringing him away.

CHAPTER XIII.

Another widow.

Waiting for the verdict-my son sent to state prison-what Sarah would
have done-interview with my first wife-help for Henry-the Biddeford
widow-her effort to marry me-our visit to Boston-A warning-A
Generous Gift-Henry pardoned-close of the Scheimer account-visit to
Ontario county-my rich cousins-what might have been-my birth-place
revisited.