"Too evident that for a parade of candour," replied Mr. M----. "Her name is Margaret Davidson. Her white companions will identify her. Her residence is where you may chance to find her." "Very vague, considering your interest," replied the other. "Where did you find her?" "Ask me first, my dear sir, whether I have found her. Perhaps not. If it is my interest to search her out, it is not less your duty to catch her. A vagrant with white mice is a kenspeckle, and surely you can have no difficulty in tracing her. I need scarcely add, that when you do find her, you will substitute her for my client, and make amends for the disgrace you have brought upon an innocent woman and a respectable family." "I won't say that," replied the other, shaking his head. "The evidence against Mrs. S---- is too heavy to admit of our believing a vagrant, influenced by the desire of, perhaps, a paid martyrdom, or the excitement of a mania." "Then, why ask me to help you to find her?" "For our satisfaction as public officers." "And to my detriment as a private agent." "Not at all." "Yes; if I choose to make her a witness for the defence, and leave the jury to judge of _paid_ martyrdom, or her real madness. Paid martyrdom!--paid by whom?" "Not necessarily by you." "But you want me to help you to be able to prove the bribe out of her own mouth, don't you?" "Of course we would examine her." "Yes, and cook her; but you must catch her first. Really, my dear sir, a very useful recipe in cuisine; and, hark ye, you can put the mice in the pan also. But, really, I am not bound, and cannot in justice be expected to do more. I have given you her name; and when had a culprit so peculiar and striking a designation as being the proprietor of a peripatetic menagerie?" "Ridiculous!" "Yes, _ridiculus mus_! But are you not the labouring mountain yourself, and do you not wish me to become the midwife?" "I perceive I can make nothing of you," at length said the gentleman. "You either don't want to save your client, or the means you trust to cannot stand the test." "God bless my soul!" roared the writer; "must I tell you again that I have given you her name and occupation? Even a cat, with nose-instinct put awry by the colour of the white race of victims, would smell her out." Bowing the official to the door with these words, he was presently in some other ravelled web, which he disentangled with equal success and apparent ease; but, following him in his great scheme, we find him in the afternoon posting again to the farm. He found the farmer in the same collapse of hope, sitting in the arm-chair so long pressed by his wife, with his chin upon his breast, and his eyes dim and dead. The evidence had got piece by piece to his ear, paralyzing more and more the tissues of his brain; and hope had assumed the character of an impossibility in the moral world of God's government.