Mary Monson had declined entering at all into any account of her previous life; evaded giving her real name even to him; carefully abstained from all allusions that might furnish any clue to her former place of abode, or to any fact that would tend to betray her secret. At the appointed hour the stage arrived, bringing the expected witness. His testimony went merely to corroborate the accounts concerning the little hoard of gold that his kinswoman had undeniably possessed, and to the circumstance that she always kept it in a particular drawer of her bureau. The bureau had been saved, for it did not stand in the sleeping-room of the deceased, but had formed a principal embellishment of her little parlour, and the money was not in it. What was more, each drawer was carefully locked, but no keys were to be found. As these were articles not likely to be melted under any heat to which they might have been exposed, a careful but fruitless search had been made for them among the ruins. They were nowhere to be seen. About nine o’clock in the evening, the jury brought in the result of their inquest. It was a verdict of murder in the first degree, committed, in the opinion of the jurors, by a female who was known by the name of Mary Monson. With the accusation of arson, the coroner’s inquest, as a matter of course, had no connection. A writ was immediately issued, and the accused arrested. [Illustration] CHAPTER V. “It was the English,” Kasper cried, “Who put the French to rout; But what they killed each other for, I could not well make out. But everybody said,” quoth he, “That ’twas a famous victory.” _Southey._ The following day, after an early breakfast, Dunscomb and his friend the doctor were on their way back to town. The former had clients and courts, and the latter patients, who were not to be neglected, to say nothing of the claims of Sarah and Mrs. Updyke. John and Michael remained at Biberry; the first being detained there by divers commissions connected with the comforts and treatment of Mary Monson, but still more by his own inclinations; and the last remaining, somewhat against his wishes, as a companion to the brother of her who so strongly drew him back to New York.