'Merciful to my mother! Mrs. Orme, speak out to me. If the will was forged, who forged it? You cannot mean to tell me that she did it!'
She did not answer him at the moment in words, but coming close up to him she took both his hands in hers, and then looked steadfastly up into his eyes. His face had now become almost convulsed with emotion, and his brow was very black. 'Do you wish me to believe that my mother forged the will herself?' Then again he paused, but she said nothing. 'Woman, it's a lie,' he exclaimed; and then tearing his hands from her, shaking her off, and striding away with quick footsteps, he threw himself on a sofa that stood in the furthest part of the room.
She paused for a moment and then followed him very gently. She followed him and stood over him in silence for a moment, as he lay with his face from her. 'Mr. Mason,' she said at last, 'you told me that you would bear this like a man.'
But he made her no answer, and she went on. 'Mr. Mason, it is, as I tell you. Years and years ago, when you were a baby, and when she thought that your father was unjust to you—for your sake,—to remedy that injustice, she did this thing.'
'What; forged his name! It must be a lie. Though an angel came to tell me so, it would be a lie! What; my mother!' And now he turned round and faced her, still however lying on the sofa.
'It is true, Mr. Mason. Oh, how I wish that it were not! But you must forgive her. It is years ago, and she has repented of it, Sir Peregrine has forgiven her,—and I have done so.'
And then she told him the whole story. She told him why the marriage had been broken off, and described to him the manner in which the truth had been made known to Sir Peregrine. It need hardly be said, that in doing so, she dealt as softly as was possible with his mother's name; but yet she told him everything. 'She wrote it herself, in the night.'
'What all; all the names herself?'
'Yes, all.'
'Mrs. Orme it cannot be so. I will not believe it. To me it is impossible. That you believe it I do not doubt, but I cannot. Let me go to her. I will go to her myself. But even should she say so herself, I will not believe it.'
But she would not let him go up-stairs even though he attempted to move her from the door, almost with violence. 'No; not till you say that you will forgive her and be gentle with her. And it must not be to-night. We will be up early in the morning, and you can see her before we go;—if you will be gentle to her.'
He still persisted that he did not believe the story, but it became clear to her, by degrees, that the meaning of it all had at last sunk into his mind, and that he did believe it. Over and over
