Page:The Life of Mary Baker Eddy (Wilbur).djvu/289



URING the summer which followed the lawsuits arranged and prosecuted by the student Arens, affairs at Number 8 Broad street progressed more quietly. Both Mr. and Mrs. Eddy were teaching metaphysics. Mrs. Eddy’s classes were held at her Lynn home, but Mr. Eddy taught in East Cambridge and in Boston, as well as in Lynn. The disaffected student Spofford was seldom seen in Lynn. He had opened an office in Boston and still retained one in Newburyport.

In October, 1878, the Boston Herald printed an article stating that Daniel Spofford had disappeared and his friends were greatly alarmed concerning him. A description of him was given and other papers were asked to copy it. A few days later the same paper stated that his body had been found and was lying at the morgue. On the twenty-ninth of October the Herald was able for the first time to print a fact in this case, relating that Asa Gilbert Eddy and Edward J. Arens were under arrest for conspiring to murder Daniel Spofford.

After the lapse of many years it is as difficult to form an opinion concerning this amazing charge as it was at the time of its occurrence. It is difficult because it requires one to follow the tangled threads