her heart would burst with the violence of her sobbing. 'I will go,' she said. 'I had better go.' And she hurried away towards the door.
'No, no; do not go yet.' And he rose to stop her, but she was quite passive. 'I do not know why you should be so much moved now.' But he did know. He did understand the very essence and core of her feelings;—as probably may the reader also. But it was impossible that he should allow her to leave him in her present state.
She sat down again, and leaning both her arms upon the table, hid her face within her hands. He was now standing, and for the moment did not speak to her. Indeed he could not bring himself to break the silence, for he saw her tears, and could still hear the violence of her sobs. And then she was the first to speak. 'If it were not for him,' she said, raising her head, 'I could bear it all. What will he do? what will he do?'
'You mean,' said Mr. Furnival, speaking very slowly, 'if the—verdict—should go against us.'
'It will go against us,' she said. 'Will it not?—tell me the truth. You are so clever, you must know. Tell me how it will go. Is there anything I can do to save him?' And she took hold of his arm with both her hands, and looked up eagerly—oh, with such terrible eagerness!—into his face.
Would it not have been natural now that he should have asked her to tell him the truth? And yet he did not dare to ask her. He thought that he knew it. He felt sure,—almost sure, that he could look into her very heart, and read there the whole of her secret. But still there was a doubt,—enough of doubt to make him wish to ask the question. Nevertheless he did not ask it.
'Mr. Furnival,' she said; and as she spoke there was a hardness came over the soft lines of her feminine face; a look of courage which amounted almost to ferocity, a look which at the moment recalled to his mind, as though it were but yesterday, the attitude and countenance she had borne as she stood in the witness-box at that other trial, now so many years since,—that attitude and countenance which had impressed the whole court with so high an idea of her courage. 'Mr. Furnival, weak as I am, I could bear to die here on the spot,—now—if I could only save him from this agony. It is not for myself I suffer.' And then the terrible idea occurred to him that she might attempt to compass her escape by death. But he did not know her. That would have been no escape for her son.
'And you too think that I must not marry him?' she said, putting up her hands to her brows as though to collect her thoughts.
'No; certainly not, Lady Mason.'
'No, no. It would be wrong. But, Mr. Furnival, I am so
