If the face of Mary Monson was pale the instant before, it now flushed to scarlet. The tint that appears in the August evening sky, when heat-lightning illuminates the horizon, is scarce more bright than that which chased the previous pallid hue from her cheeks. Dunscomb understood her dilemma, and interposed. She was equally unwilling to tell her real name, and to give a false one, under the solemn responsibility of an oath. There is, probably, less of deliberate, calculated false-swearing, than of any other offence against justice; few having the nerve, or the moral obtuseness, that is necessary to perjury. We do not mean by this, that all which legal witnesses say is true, or the half of it; for ignorance, dull imaginations working out solutions of half-comprehended propositions, and the strong propensity we all feel to see things as we have expected to find them, in a measure disqualifies fully half of those on whom the law has devolved a most important duty, to discharge it with due intelligence and impartiality. “As a member of the bar, I interfere in behalf of the witness,” said Dunscomb, rising. “She is evidently unacquainted with her true position here, and consequently with her rights. Jack, get a glass of water for the young lady;” and never did Jack obey a request of his uncle with greater alacrity. “A witness cannot, with propriety, be treated as a criminal, or one suspected, without being apprised that the law does not require of those thus circumstanced, answers affecting themselves.” Dunscomb had listened more to his feelings than to his legal knowledge, in offering this objection, inasmuch as no very searching question had, as yet, been put to Mary Monson. This the coroner saw, and he did not fail to let it be understood that he was aware of the weakness of the objection. “Coroners are not governed by precisely the same rules as ordinary committing magistrates,” he quietly observed, “though we equally respect the rules of evidence. No witness is obliged to answer a question before an inquest, that will criminate himself, any more than at the Oyer and Terminer. If the lady will say she does not wish to tell her real name, _because it may criminate her_, I shall not press the question myself, or allow it to be pressed by others.” “Very true, sir; but the law requires, in these preliminary proceedings, no more than such accuracy as is convenient in making out the records. I conceive that in this particular case the question might be varied by asking, ‘You are known by the name of Mary Monson, I believe?’” “What great harm can it be to this young female to give her real name, Mr. Dunscomb, as I understand you are that distinguished counsellor, if she be perfectly innocent of the death of the Goodwins?”