From that moment shadows gathered about her with ever-increasing sombreness till they culminated in that hour of darkness in which her life went out. In Burr's Mexican scheme, which he set on foot shortly after the expiration of his term as Vice-President, Theodosia became involved sentimentally, and her husband financially. The President's proclamation and Burr's arrest put an end to their visionary dynasty in Mexico. Instead of beholding him upon a throne, they saw him arraigned before the tribunal of justice at Richmond, on a charge of high treason, with Chief Justice Marshall the presiding judge, and John Randolph of Roanoke foreman of the jury. Never, it has been said, did two more wonderful pairs of eyes than those of Marshall and Burr, black, brilliant, and penetrating, look into each other. In arraigning Burr, there was an element to be reckoned with that is not ordinarily taken into consideration,--the marvellous personality of the man. From his appearance, his manners, his voice, his eyes, emanated an influence not to be lightly estimated. In his bearing and presence he was peerless. He spoke without effort, in a full, crisp, rather than powerful, voice, clothing his thoughts in the language best suited to their most accurate expression, terse, epigrammatic and devoid of figures, his mobile features lending themselves to the thought that was severe or scintillating, tender or impressive. With a woman's tact he combined an adroit intellect equal to any emergency. He conducted his own defence, supported by the best legal talent in the country. His son-in-law sat beside him every day in court, and Theodosia, the beautiful, noble Theodosia, with sublime faith in her father, inspired a confidence in him in other breasts. She appealed to the poetic fancy of Washington Irving, then a young barrister, who was sent from New York to report the trial for his brother's paper, and whose letters evince an unmistakable sympathy for Burr. Luther Martin, one of the foremost geniuses of the Maryland bar, defended him with an eloquence that rendered Martin himself an object of suspicion to Thomas Jefferson. "I find that Luther Martin's idolatrous admiration of Mrs. Alston," wrote Blennerhassett, "is almost as excessive as my own, but far more beneficial to his interests and injurious to his judgment, as it is the medium of his blind attachment to her father, whose secrets and views, past, present, and to come, he is and wishes to remain ignorant of. Nor can he see a speck in the character of Alston, for the best of all reasons with him,--namely, that Alston has such a wife."