“This is very extraordinary!” said Dunscomb, regarding his companion, in surprise. “I do know something about Mary Monson, but not all about her. Can you tell me anything?”
Here the stranger advanced a little from his corner, listened, as if fearful of being surprised, then laid a finger on his lip, and made the familiar sound for ‘hush.’
“Don’t let her hear you; if you do, you may be sorry for it. She’s a witch!”
“Poor fellow!—she seems, in truth, to have bewitched you, as I dare say she may have done many another man.”
“That has she! I wish you’d tell me what I want to know, if you really be the great lawyer from York.”
“Put your questions, my friend; I’ll endeavour to answer them.”
“Who set fire to the house? Can you tell me that?”
“That is a secret yet to be discovered—do you happen to know anything about it?”
“Do I?—I think I do. Ask Mary Monson; she can tell you.”
All this was so strange, that the whole party now gazed at each other in mute astonishment; McBrain bending his looks more intently on the stranger, in order to ascertain the true nature of the mental malady with which he was obviously afflicted. In some respects the disease wore the appearance of idiocy; then again there were gleams of the countenance that savoured of absolute madness.