“And the stories—the reports—have they been well circulated?”
“A little too well, I’m afraid. That concerning your having married a Frenchman, and having run away from him, has gone through all the lower towns of Duke’s like wild-fire. It has even reached the ears of ’Squire Dunscomb, and will be in the York papers to-morrow.”
A little start betrayed the surprise of the prisoner; and a look accompanied it, which would seem to denote dissatisfaction that a tale put in circulation by herself, as it would now appear, had gone quite so far.
“Mr. Dunscomb!” she repeated, musingly. “Anna Updyke’s uncle Tom; and one whom such a story may very well set thinking. I wish it had not reached him, of all men, Mr. Timms.”
“If I may judge of his opinions by some little acts and expressions that have escaped him, I am inclined to think he believes the story to be, in the main, true.”
Mary Monson smiled; and, as was much her wont when thinking intensely, her lips moved; even a low muttering became audible to a person as near as her companion then was.
“It is now time, Mr. Timms, to set the other story in motion,” she said, quickly. “Let one account follow the other; that will distract people’s belief. We must be active in this matter.”
“There is less necessity for our moving in the affair, as Williams has got a clue to it, by some means or other; and his men will spread it far and near, long before the cause goes to the jury.”
“That is fortunate!” exclaimed the prisoner, actually clapping her pretty gloved hands together in delight. “A story as terrible as that must react powerfully, when its falsehood comes to be shown. I regard that tale as the cleverest of all our schemes, Mr. Timms.”
“Why—yes—that is—I think, Miss Mary, it may be set down as the boldest.”