in conversation unprintable, he boasted of his ability to effect the ruin of chaste women through the use of drugs. In' two instances, however, so he said, he had been obliged to submit to a marriage ceremony. He acknowledged the paternity of a child by his first wife, but confessed that in other in stances he had removed all evidences of the illicit passion. Then came the Drew episode. While his sick wife was being nursed back to life at Scranton, Harris, under the name of Graham, was requested to leave the Webster House at Canandaigua, N. Y., because of his licentious behavior with a young girl, Queen Drew. "You had better marry some old gentle man with lots of 'mun,' " he told her: and upon her asking, "Well, what if I do?" he replied, "Oh, we can put him out of the way. You find the old gentleman and we'll give him a pill. I can fix that." After what had taken place in Pennsylva nia the truth could not very well be kept concealed from Mrs. Potts. About a week before college opened, in the fall of 1890. the three met in New York and lunched together. To quiet suspicion Harris asked the mother to go with him to the office of his attorney, Mr. Davison. A copy of the mar riage certificate (he had been careful to burn the original) was procured from the City Hall and given to Mrs. Potts, together with an affidavit, verified by Harris, in which the fact of the marriage was fully set forth. The mother insisted upon the performance of a religious ceremony. "There is nothing sacred to me in such a marriage as this," she declared. "Well. I should say not," her worthy sonin-law answered. "I looked the old fellow up and he keeps a lager-beer saloon." He cynically proposed that if she were tired of the match it could easilv be broken and no one be the .wiser. "I would call that legalized prostitution," was the indignant reply. Harris succeeded in persuading her that it was best to place Helen in a well known
school, "to fit her for the society I hope she may move in." At his earnest request she wrote to Dr. Treverton, asking that he re frain from making a threatened disclosure. For the time being the criminal had suc ceeded in his policy of delay. On December 2 Helen entered the Cornstock School in Fortieth street, from which six weeks later her lifeless body was to be borne. Despite his temporary success the situa tion of Harris was becoming one of increas ing peril. A confessed bigamist, the hero of numerous intrigues, he saw with affright the ruin which a public announcement of the marriage would bring upon his head. Never had prospects in life looked fairer. Ac knowledged leader of his class, prottgt of an eminent physician, he had every reason to look forward to a career of increasing brilliancy. Such announcement could not, must not be made. After frantic efforts to secure a further postponement for two years ("that Helen might take a course at Wellesley"), in January, he apparently ac ceded to the demand of Mrs. Potts that a religious ceremony be performed on the eighth of the next month, the anniversary of their marriage, "if," he wrote, "no other means of satisfying her scruples could be found." It was then that he resolved upon the commission of a crime, which would, he fondly believed, insure his safety forever. About this time, Dr. Peabody, professor of materia medica, delivered a course of lectures on poisons, in which the speaker laid par ticular stress upon the difficulty of detection in cases where morphine had been used feloniously. To better illustrate his mean ing samples of the drug were handed around in wide-mouthed bottles. The students passed these bottles from one to another, and were permitted to take out and examine the contents. On the 20th of January, the day following that on which a letter had been received from Mrs. Potts, fixing the date for the ceremony, Harris went to the pharmacy of Ewen
