desire to fish up some particulars, concerning it; for she
thought so long and so ardently upon it that by degrees it became
settled in her mind as a sealed truth. And, as woman is always most
jealous of her own sex in such matters, her suspicions were fixed on
her greatest enemy, Mrs. Colwan, now the Lady Dowager of Dalcastle. All
was wrapt in a chaos of confusion and darkness; but at last, by dint of
a thousand sly and secret inquiries, Mrs. Logan found out where Lady
Dalcastle had been on the night that the murder happened, and likewise
what company she had kept, as well as some of the comers and goers; and
she had hopes of having discovered a clue, which, if she could keep
hold of the thread, would lead her through darkness to the light of
truth.

Returning very late one evening from a convocation of family servants,
which she had drawn together in order to fish something out of them,
her maid having been in attendance on her all the evening, they found,
on going home, that the house had been broken and a number of valuable
articles stolen therefrom. Mrs. Logan had grown quite heartless before
this stroke, having been altogether unsuccessful in her inquiries, and
now she began to entertain some resolutions of giving up the fruitless
search.

In a few days thereafter, she received intelligence that her clothes
and plate were mostly recovered, and that she for one was bound over to
prosecute the depredator, provided the articles turned out to be hers,
as libelled in the indictment, and as a king's evidence had given out.
She was likewise summoned, or requested, I know not which, being
ignorant of these matters, to go as far as the town of Peebles in
Tweedside, in order to survey these articles on such a day, and make
affidavit to their identity before the Sheriff She went accordingly;
but, on entering the town by the North Gate, she was accosted by a poor
girl in tattered apparel, who with great earnestness inquired if her
name was not Mrs. Logan? On being answered in the affirmative, she said
that the unfortunate prisoner in the Tolbooth requested her, as she
valued all that was dear to her in life, to go and see her before she
appeared in court at the hour of cause, as she (the prisoner) had
something of the greatest moment to impart to her. Mrs. Logan's
curiosity was excited, and she followed the girl straight to the
Tolbooth, who by the way said to her that she would find in the
prisoner a woman of superior mind