When going his accustomed rounds, he noticed sundry shavings and chips of a decidedly new and fresh appearance on the floor outside of Willis's door. He further noticed that the door was partly open, whereupon he hastily entered the room in no small perturbation of mind. Nor was his disturbance diminished when he found that there was but one occupant of the bed, and that, the fair lady whom he had admitted the night before! She was apparently fast asleep, and although the spectacle was one of a picturesque description, the old gentleman would have derived much more satisfaction from a sight of her liege lord. He looked in all directions round the room, with the vague idea that his prisoner might start up from behind a chair or table; but no such phenomenon occurred, and the conclusion forced itself upon him that he had been made the victim of misplaced confidence; in other words, that Willis had escaped by the aid of his devoted wife and her treacherous basket. An auger, concealed in its depths, had been smuggled in, and used in boring off the door-hinges, and now lay on the floor. [Illustration] "Mrs. Willis," cried the now indignant jailor, "Mrs. Willis, I say!" But the slumberer stirred not, and he repeated the call in louder tones,--"Mrs. Willis, where's your husband?" Rising up on one elbow, and looking about the room, apparently much confused, she replied, "Where's my husband? have you taken him away without letting me know it?" She steadily refused to give any information concerning the time or mode of his escape, and was equally careful not to deny that she furnished the means for securing his exit. She was therefore arrested and taken before an United States Commissioner, charged with aiding and abetting the escape of a prisoner; but such was the public sympathy in her behalf, that she was discharged from custody, and no doubt, soon joined her husband, who had proved himself so utterly unworthy of such an affectionate, devoted, and heroic companion. Not long after this escape, a suit was brought in one of the lower courts, against a brother of Willis, to recover the value of a horse killed by hard driving on the night of Willis's disappearance. It was more than surmised that the two circumstances were in some way connected. CHAPTER VII. Startling Complaints--Character against Suspicion--The two Clerks--Exchanging Notes--The Faro Bank--Tracing a Bill--An official Call--False Explanation--Flight of the Guilty--The fatal Drug--The Suicide--Sufferings of the Innocent--The Moral. The close of the year 1839, and the opening of 1840, were marked in the Post-Office Department with frequent and startling announcements of the loss, by mail, of valuable letters from Southern Virginia, and Eastern and Northern North Carolina, directed to Richmond and other commercial cities farther North.