Then, the unaccountable silence of Marie Moulin doubled the mystery and greatly increased the interest of the whole affair. This woman had gone to Biberry pledged to communicate to Sarah all she knew or might learn, touching the accused; and well did Anna know that her friend would make her the repository of her own information, on this as well as on other subjects; but a most unaccountable silence governed the course of the domestic, as well as that of her strange mistress. It really seemed that, in passing the principal door of the gaol, Marie Moulin had buried herself in a convent, where all communication with the outer world was forbidden. Three several letters from Sarah had John handed in at the grate, certain that they must have reached the hands of the Swiss; but no answer had been received. All attempts to speak to Marie were quietly, but most ingeniously evaded, by the tact and readiness of the prisoner; and the hope of obtaining information from that source was abandoned by Sarah, who was too proud to solicit a servant for that which the last was reluctant to communicate. With Anna the feeling was different. She had no curiosity on the subject, separated from a most generous and womanly concern in the prisoner’s forlorn state; and she thought far less of Marie Moulin’s disrespect and forgetfulness of her word, than of Mary Monson’s desolation and approaching trial. [Illustration] CHAPTER XIII. Was it for this we sent out Liberty’s cry from our shore? Was it for this that her shout Thrill’d to the world’s very core? _Moore’s National Airs._ The third day after the interviews just related, the whole party left Rattletrap for Timbully, where their arrival was expected by the bride and bridegroom, if such terms can be applied to a woman of forty-five and a man of sixty. The Duke’s county circuit and oyer and terminer were about to be held, and it was believed that Mary Monson was to be tried. By this time so lively an interest prevailed among the ladies of the McBrain and Dunscomb connections in behalf of the accused, that they had all come to a determination to be present in court. Curiosity was not so much at the bottom of this movement as womanly kindness and sympathy. There seemed a bitterness of misery in the condition of Mary Monson, that appealed directly to the heart; and that silent but eloquent appeal was answered, as has just been stated, generously and with warmth by the whole party from town. With Anna Updyke the feeling went materially farther than with any of her friends. Strange as it may seem, her interest in John increased that which she felt for his mysterious client; and her feelings became enlisted in the stranger’s behalf, so much the more, in consequence of this triangular sort of passion.