It is to be presumed that Timms found the means to communicate to Williams the rejection of the latter’s offer, before the court met next morning. It is certain that the counsel associated with the Attorney-General manifested unusual zeal in the performance of duties that most men would have found unpleasant, if not painful, and that he was captious, short, and ill-natured. Just as Mary Monson came within the bar, a letter was put into the hands of Dunscomb, who quietly broke the seal, and read it twice, as the observant Timms fancied; then put it in his pocket, with a mien so undisturbed that no mere looker-on would have suspected its importance. The letter was from Millington, and it announced a general want of success in his mission. The whereabouts of M. de Larocheforte could not be ascertained; and those who knew anything about his movements, were of opinion that he was travelling in the West, accompanied by his fair, accomplished, and affluent young consort. None of those who would naturally have heard of such an event, had it occurred, could say there had ever been a separation between the French husband and the American wife. Millington, himself, had never seen his kinswoman, there being a coolness of long standing between the two branches of the family, and could give little or no information on the subject. In a word, he could discover nothing to enable him to carry out the clue obtained in the rumour; while, on the other hand, he found a certain set, who occupied themselves a good deal with intelligence of that sort, were greatly disposed to believe the report, set on foot by herself, that Mary Monson was a stool-pigeon of a gang of marauders, and doubtless guilty of everything of which she had been accused. Millington would remain in town, however, another day, and endeavour to push his inquiries to some useful result. Cool, clear-headed, and totally without romance, Dunscomb knew that a better agent than his young friend could not be employed, and was fain to wait patiently for the discoveries he might eventually succeed in making. In the mean time the trial proceeded. “Mr. Clerk,” said his honour, “let the jury be called.”