annoyance to my friends. Sometimes I am almost inclined to think that I will never trouble any one again with my sorrows, but let things come and go as they may. Were it not for poor Lucius I should do so.'
Mr. Furnival, looking into her face, perceived that her eyes were full of tears. There could be no doubt as to their reality. Her eyes were full of genuine tears, brimming over and running down; and the lawyer's heart was melted. 'I do not know why you should say so,' he said. 'I do not think your friends begrudge any little trouble they may take for you. I am sure at least that I may so say for myself.'
'You are too kind to me; but I do not on that account the less know how much it is I ask of you.'
'The labour we delight in physics pain,' said Mr, Furnival gallantly. 'But, to tell the truth, Lady Mason, I cannot understand why you should be so much out of heart. I remember well how brave and constant you were twenty years ago, when there really was cause for trembling.'
'Ah, I was younger then.'
'So the almanac tells us; but if the almanac did not tell us I should never know it. We are all older, of course. Twenty years does not go by without leaving its marks, as I can feel myself.'
'Men do not grow old as women do, who live alone and gather rust as they feed on their own thoughts.'
'I know no one whom time has touched so lightly as yourself, Lady Mason; but if I may speak to you as a friend———'
'If you may not, Mr. Furnival, who may?'
'I should tell you that you are weak to be so despondent, or rather so unhappy.'
'Another lawsuit would kill me, I think. You say that I was brave and constant before, but you cannot understand what I suffered. I nerved myself to bear it, telling myself that it was the first duty that I owed to the babe that was lying on my bosom. And when standing there in the Court, with that terrible array around me, with the eyes of all men on me, the eyes of men who thought that I had been guilty of so terrible a crime, for the sake of that child who was so weak I could be brave. But it nearly killed me. Mr. Furnival, I could not go through that again; no, not even for his sake. If you can save me from that, even though it be by the baying off of that ungrateful man———'
'You must not think of that.'
'Must I not? ah me!'
'Will you tell Lucius all this, and let him come to me?'
'No; not for worlds. He would defy every one, and glory in the fight; but after all it is I that must bear the brunt. No; he shall not know it;—unless it becomes so public that he must know it.'
