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Show THE FEMALE STRANGER 7ISIT0RS to the cemetery attached ro St. Paul's church in Alexandria. Va., seldom leave without examining the inscription upon a handsome monument mon-ument whit h is one of the outstanding places of interest in the city as well as one of the most baffling riddles of IdentUy which the passage of more thi.ti a century has failed to solve-. This inscription comprises within a few lines ail that the world knows of the woman in question, for it rends: TO THE MEMORY OF THE FEMALE STRANGER Wlio.ce moruil sufferings terminnto'l on the fourth day of October. 1S16. aired twenty-eiirht years and etcht months, this stone is erected by her disconsolate husband in whose arms The breathed out her last siirh. and '.v'jo. under God. did his titmost to eoothe ttie dull, cold ear of death. That is all nnl tl most determined deter-mined efforts of tlu Msidents of Alexandria during the first half of the last century, failed to throw the slightest light upon the mystery. The facts In the case are few, but, such as they are, they are supported by the unassailable evidence of a number num-ber of persons who were eyewitnesses to the brief public appearance of the "female stranger." The brig Four Sons docked at Alexandria on July 25, 1810, en route from Halifax to the West Indies. The Virginia city was not a port of call on the regular route, but the captain stated that one of hia passengers had been taken dangerously 111 and that her husband had demanded demand-ed that she be put ashore at Alexandria, Alexan-dria, where a boat was lowered, and a man and woman, the latter apparently very ill, were taken ashore. Despite the heat of mid-summer, the woman wore a heavy black veil, and her husband secured the best suite In the Inn of the Bunch of Grapes, as well as the sendees of a well-known physician whom he engaged only after pledging him to strictest secrecy. Even In the presence of the doctor, however, the woman's face was kept veiled, and the husband steadfastly refused to hire n nurse, saying that he was entirely en-tirely capable of handling the case and that he was able to do anything that a nurse could do. As the weeks of scorching hot weather progressed, however, the man began to wilt under the constant strain of watching beside the bed, and finally agreed to permit two of the guests In the Inn to help him but only after they had taken an oath that nothing they might learn would ever be divulged, an oath which was kept as a sacred trust. During the ten weeks which followed fol-lowed the woman's arrival In Alexandria, Alexan-dria, she grew steadily worse, and at last, at dawn on October 4, her husband hus-band announced that she had died. Then, for fear that someone might see the face which he had kept hidden from the world, he himself prepared the body for burial, sealed the lid of the coffin, and, after attending the funeral and ordering the headstone with the strange inscription, disappeared. disap-peared. On October 4 of the following year, Alexandria was surprised at the sudden sud-den and unheralded return of the husband, hus-band, who remained In the city only long enough to place flowers on the grave of the "female stranger," and to see that the plot in the cemetery was well taken care of. Once a year, for twelve years, he returned. Then his visits ceased and the grave was neglected neg-lected until, a number of years later, a distinguished elderly man and woman wom-an came and ordered the monument to be replaced by another and more costly headstone bearing the same Inscription, In-scription, with the addition of the verse : Hovr loved, how honored once, avails thee not, To whom relaisO, or by whom begot; A heap of dust alone remains of thee, 'Tls all lt.u art, and all the proud shall be. They, too, vanished taking with them the secret of the identity of the woman whose hlstorv and personality is forever hidden fro-n the world behind be-hind three words "The Female Stranger." |