When her father returned, Mary asked him how Peter's wife was sustaining her affliction. She did not ask if any clue had been got to the murderer. She trembled as the words were on her lips. The circumstances of the evening bore heavy upon her. She knew that William and Peter had quarrelled about the tocher, but still she did not suspect her father. She felt it even impious to say to herself that she did not suspect him; for she conceived that the mere connection of the ideas of the murder and of her parent could be nothing but a freak of the devil. Yet she could not ask her father if any clue had been got to the murderer, and she could not tell why she felt unable to do that. William talked about certain probabilities as to this one or that one being the guilty person, but came to no very satisfactory conclusion. His first idea, he said, was, that the Italian had done the deed; but he could see no proper motive that could induce him to commit the crime; and, besides, Giulio had been seen running out of the palace along with the rest of the people--no sword had been seen upon him, and none had been found by the persons who had gone to search for evidence. After indulging in some conversation of the same kind, and lamenting the death, and the consequent interference with the marriage, they retired to rest. The search for the murderer of Peter Connal was continued for many days without effect. The funeral of the unfortunate man was attended by a great crowd of people, attracted by the respect in which Peter was held, and the unusual circumstances of his death. John Connal now took up the business, carrying his resolution into effect, not to imitate his father in the matter of the sign-post. He accordingly got a very imposing one erected, in which he fell into the error which his father had condemned in such indignant terms; for it was filled up with mere pictures of casks, bottles, and bickers--things in themselves so sacred in the estimation of Peter, that he hated all representation of them as a species of idolatry. The very barrel on which he had so often sat was turned in. The jaunty and gaudy signboard was not received as a compensation for the comfortable personalty of Peter. The inhabitants of the neighbourhood, who had formerly been so delighted with his portly figure, in the very attitude of doing almost continually that which it was their wish to imitate, turned away their eyes from the dry contrast afforded by a mere picture, and sighed over all the vanities of this fleeting world. The intercourse between William Glenday and John Connal was not interrupted by the unaccountable circumstance that had occurred; but it was soon observed that Mary was not what she used to be. Even John Connal observed a difference in her manner. She felt a reluctance to fix another day for the marriage; and the importunities of John seemed only to increase it.