Upon inquiry for her friend, Mrs Hare rushed forward and attempted to strike Brown,--a movement not easily accounted for, except upon the supposition of a feminine way of repelling an intruder upon their secrecy, who might be dangerous; but this burst gave way to a quieter demeanour, the result of greater prudence, for the recklessness of passion is not exclusive of minor means of self-preservation. They told her that Mary had gone out with Burke, and invited her to sit down and take a glass with them, upon which the servant left. Brown now saw Hare's eye fixed upon her, and no doubt her partial inebriation was a temptation which was touching; and Helen M'Dougal continued her part of the play, by railing against her husband for going away with the girl whose dead body was actually in the room. Brown, surrounded by the three fiends, was again in danger; but, fortunately, Mrs Laurie, who had got alarmed at the report of the servant, upon what precise grounds is not known, sent back the girl to bring away Brown. No attempt was made to retain her in the presence of the servant, but she was invited to return,--a circumstance so adverse to the policy of keeping away so interested an inquirer as to be almost proof of their intention to send her after her friend, the double object of the price of her body and the seal of secrecy being the motive. Meanwhile, changes had been going on in the house; and when Brown, in the afternoon, again called, Hare was gone--having given up his hope of the further prey, as he would calculate upon Brown's gradual return to sobriety. She was now told that Burke and Mary had never returned. Further inquiries were made, not only by Brown, but by a Mrs Worthington, with whom the two girls lived, and then another story was trumped up, to the effect that Mary had gone on the tramp with a packman to Glasgow. This story pleased Brown less than the other, which carried the inconsistency of a recovery from drunken unconsciousness in so short a time; while the tramp to Glasgow, and no intimation from that quarter, were equally unlike the habits of the girl, who could write an intelligent letter, and would certainly have done so if for no other object than to inform Brown of her departure and to claim her clothes, which still lay in Mrs Worthington's. No further intelligence was ever obtained till the great break up. The fate of Mary Paterson was meanwhile a mystery. But when we take into account the vagrant habits of these restless and changeful beings, we need make no reproach on the want of affection of friends or relatives.