to her? What word of comfort could he speak? It was not only that she had beggared him! Nay; it was not that at all! But she had doomed him to a life of disgrace which no effort of his own could wipe away. And then as he threw himself on his bed he thought of Sophia Furnival. Would she share his disgrace with him? Was it possible that there might be solace there?
Quite impossible, we should say, who know her well.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
YOUNG LOCHINVAR.
Judge Staveley, whose court had not been kept siting to a late hour by any such eloquence as that of Mr. Furnival, had gone home before the business of the other court had closed. Augustus, who was his father's marshal, remained for his friend, and had made his way in among the crowd, so as to hear the end of the speech.
'Don't wait dinner for us,' he had said to his father. 'If you do you will be hating us all the time; and we sha'n't be there till between eight and nine.'
'I should be sorry to hate you,' said the judge, 'and so I won't.' When therefore Felix Graham escaped from the court at about half-past seven, the two young men were able to take their own time and eat their dinner together comfortably, enjoying their bottle of champagne between them perhaps more thoroughly than they would have done had the judge and Mrs. Staveley shared it with them.
But Felix had something of which to think besides the champagne—something which was of more consequence to him even than the trial in which he was engaged. Madeline had promised that she would meet him that evening;—or rather had not so promised. When asked to do so she had not refused, but even while not refusing had reminded him that her mother would be there. Her manner to him had, he thought, been cold, though she had not been ungracious. Upon the whole, he could not make up his mind to expect success. 'Then he must have been a fool!' the reader learned in such matters will say. The reader learned in such matters is, I think, right. In that respect he was a fool.
'I suppose we must give the governor the benefit of our company over his wine,' said Augustus, as soon as their dinner was over.
'I suppose we ought to do so.'
'And why not? Is there any objection?'
'To tell the truth,' said Graham, 'I have an appointment which I am very anxious to keep.'
'An appointment? Where? Here at Noningsby, do you mean?'
