“I really begin to hope the unfortunate lady may be innocent,” said the doctor.
“Innocent!” exclaimed Sarah—“surely, uncle Ned, you can never have doubted it!”
McBrain and Dunscomb exchanged significant glances, and the last was about to answer, when raising his eyes, he saw a strange form[form] glide stealthily into the room, and place itself in a dark corner. It was a short, sturdy figure of a man, with all those signs of squalid misery in his countenance and dress that usually denote mental imbecility. He seemed anxious to conceal himself, and did succeed in getting more than half of his person beneath a shawl of Sarah’s, ere he was seen by any of the party but the counsellor. It at once occurred to the latter that this was the being who had more than once disturbed him by his noise, and who Mrs. Horton had pretty plainly intimated was out of his mind; though she had maintained a singularly discreet silence for her, touching his history and future prospects. She believed “he had been brought to court by his friends, to get some order, or judgment—may be, his visit had something to do with the new code, about which ’Squire Dunscomb said so many hard things.”
A little scream from Sarah soon apprised all in the room of the presence of this disgusting-looking object. She snatched away her shawl, leaving the idiot, or madman, or whatever he might be, fully exposed to view, and retreated, herself, behind her uncle’s chair.
“I fancy you have mistaken your room, my friend,” said Dunscomb, mildly. “This, as you see, is engaged by a card-party—I take it, you do not play.”
A look of cunning left very little doubt of the nature of the malady with which this unfortunate being was afflicted. He made a clutch at the cards, laughed, then drew back, and began to mutter.
“She won’t let me play,” mumbled the idiot—“she never would.”
“Whom[“Whom] do you mean by she?” asked Dunscomb. “Is it any one in this house—Mrs. Horton, for instance?”
Another cunning look, with a shake of the head, for an answer in the negative.
“Be you ’Squire Dunscomb, the great York lawyer?” asked the stranger, with interest.