Little was heard for another month or two, and then came the announcement that the Governor’s wife had left him and had returned to her parents’ home.  The news flew like wildfire, and was the theme of every tongue.  Friends of Mrs. Houston begged her to tell them the meaning of the whole affair.  Adherents of Houston, on the other hand, set afloat stories of his wife’s coldness and of her peevishness.  The state was divided into factions; and what really concerned a very few was, as usual, made everybody’s business.

There were times when, if Houston had appeared near the dwelling of his former wife, he would have been lynched or riddled with bullets.  Again, there were enemies and slanderers of his who, had they shown themselves in Nashville, would have been torn to pieces by men who hailed Houston as a hero and who believed that he could not possibly have done wrong.

However his friends might rage, and however her people might wonder and seek to pry into the secret, no satisfaction was given on either side.  The abandoned wife never uttered a word of explanation.  Houston was equally reticent and self-controlled.  In later years he sometimes drank deeply and was loose-tongued; but never, even in his cups, could he be persuaded to say a single word about his wife.

The whole thing is a mystery and cannot be solved by any evidence that we have.  Almost every one who has written of it seems to have indulged in mere guesswork.  One popular theory is that Miss Allen was in love with some one else; that her parents forced her into a brilliant marriage with Houston, which, however, she could not afterward endure; and that Houston, learning the facts, left her because he knew that her heart was not really his.

But the evidence is all against this.  Had it been so she would surely have secured a divorce and would then have married the man whom she truly loved.  As a matter of fact, although she did divorce Houston, it was only after several years, and the man whom she subsequently married was not acquainted with her at the time of the separation.

Another theory suggests that Houston was harsh in his treatment of his wife, and offended her by his untaught manners and extreme self-conceit.  But it is not likely that she objected to his manners, since she had become familiar with them before she gave him her hand; and as to his conceit, there is no evidence that it was as yet unduly developed.  After his Texan campaign he sometimes showed a rather lofty idea of his own achievements; but he does not seem to have done so in these early days.

Some have ascribed the separation to his passion for drink; but here again we must discriminate.  Later in life he became very fond of spirits and drank whisky with the Indians, but during his earlier years he was most abstemious.  It scarcely seems possible that his wife left him because he was intemperate.