As soon as the inquest was organized, the coroner directed a physician of the neighbourhood to be put on the stand. It had gone forth that a “city doctor” had intimated that neither of the skeletons was that of Peter Goodwin, and there was a common wish to confront him with a high country authority. It was while the medical man now in request was sent for, that McBrain pointed out to Dunscomb the person of Mary Monson. She sat in a corner different from that she had occupied the day before, seemingly for the same purpose, or that of being alone. Alone she was not, strictly, however; a respectable-looking female, of middle age, being at her side. This was a Mrs. Jones, the wife of a clergyman, who had charitably offered the suspected young stranger a home under her own roof, pending the investigation. It was thought, generally, that Mary Monson had but very vague notions of the distrust that rested on her, it being a part of the plan of those who were exercising all their wits to detect the criminal, that she was first to learn this fact in open court, and under circumstances likely to elicit some proofs of guilt. When Dunscomb learned this artifice, he saw how ungenerous and unmanly it was, readily imagined a dozen signs of weakness that a female might exhibit in such a strait, that had no real connection with crime, and felt a strong disposition to seek an interview, and put the suspected party on her guard. It was too late for this, however, just then; and he contented himself, for the moment, with studying such signs of character and consciousness as his native sagacity and long experience enabled him to detect.