For remember, though you cannot pronounce her guilty, her sufferings have been terribly severe. Think what it must have been for a woman with habits such as hers, to have looked forward for long, long weeks to such a martyrdom as this! Think what she must have suffered in being dragged here and subjected to the gaze of all the county as a suspected felon! Think what must have been her feelings when I told her, not knowing how deep an ingenuity might be practised against her, that I must counsel her to call to her aid the unequalled talents of my friend Mr. Chaffanbrass'———'Unequalled no longer, but far surpassed,' whispered Chaffanbrass, in a voice that was audible through all the centre of the court. 'Her punishment has been terrible,' continued Mr. Furnival. 'After what she has gone through, it may well be doubted whether she can continue to reside at that sweet spot which has aroused such a feeling of avarice in the bosom of her kinsman. You have heard that Sir Joseph Mason had promised his eldest son that Orley Farm should form a part of his inheritance. It may be that the old man did make such a promise. If so, he thought fit to break it. But is it not wonderful that a man wealthy as is Mr. Mason—for his fortune is large; who has never wanted anything that money can buy; a man for whom his father did so much,—that he should be stirred up by disappointed avarice to carry in his bosom for twenty years so bitter a feeling of rancour against those who are nearest to him by blood and ties of family! Gentlemen, it has been a fearful lesson; but it is one which neither you nor I will ever forget!
'And now I shall leave my client's case in your hands. As to the verdict which you will give, I have no apprehension. You know as well as I do that she has not been guilty of this terrible crime. That you will so pronounce I do not for a moment doubt. But I do hope that that verdict will be accompanied by some expression on your part which may show to the world at large how great has been the wickedness displayed in the accusation.'
And yet as he sat down he knew that she had been guilty! To his ear her guilt had never been confessed; but yet he knew that it was so, and, knowing that, he had been able to speak as though her innocence were a thing of course. That those witnesses had spoken truth he also knew, and yet he had been able to hold them up to the execration of all around them as though they had committed the worst of crimes from the foulest of motives! And more than this, stranger than this, worse than this,—when the legal world knew—as the legal world soon did know—that all this had been so, the legal world found no fault with Mr. Furnival, conceiving that he had done his duty by his client in a manner becoming an English barrister and an English gentleman.
