"A drunken, half-crazy thing. She spends her time between the poor-house and the grog-shop. She'll never mind about her husband, beyond howling for an hour or two when she first hears it, if she happens to be sober. Now, Miss, don't think any more about it, but try to go to sleep. You'll be quite worn out." And Kitty threw herself upon her mattress by my bed, where she now slept, and, faithfullest and tenderest of attendants, never left me, day or night. CHAPTER XXXIV. "Nor peace nor ease, the heart can know, That, like the needle true, Turns at the touch of joy or woe, But, turning, trembles too." GREVILLE. "Things seem to be taking a new turn," said the captain, meditatively, over his coffee the next morning. "I own I thought we were at the bottom of the mystery, yesterday, but this woman's testimony seems to set us all adrift again, and we're no nearer a conclusion than we were a week ago." "What woman's?" asked Ellerton, who had just come in. "The man's wife," said the captain. "What man's?" demanded Ella, who generally arrived at a subject about ten minutes after it had been introduced. "Why the man who was supposed to have murdered the doctor, Miss Ella, and whose body was found in the lake. We were all mightily relieved yesterday, and thought the murderer had found his reward, and were only sorry that he'd cheated the hangman. But in the meantime his wife turns up, and brings a lot of things to light; swears that on the night of the murder he was at Brandon, on an errand for the doctor, and brings the landlord and barkeeper of the 'Brandon Shades' to testify to his remaining there till after eleven o'clock. She also states that the doctor and her husband were on good terms, and that the doctor often employed him in a confidential way; that there was a person who, she knew, bore malice against the doctor; she had overheard a conversation between her husband and Dr. Hugh, in which"---- "But her testimony goes for nothing," I interrupted, eagerly. "She is well known to be half crazy, and hardly ever sober. Her testimony can't be worth a straw--nobody would listen to her for a moment."