'A man's part; and a son's part. Shall I see these lawyers and learn from them what they are at? Have I your leave to tell them that you want no subterfuge, no legal quibbles,—that you stand firmly on your own clear innocence, and that you defy your enemies to sully it? Mother, those who have sent you to such men as that cunning attorney have sent you wrong,—have counselled you wrong.'
'It cannot be changed now, Lucius.'
'It can be changed, if you will tell me to change it.'
And then again she paused. Ah, think of her anguish as she sought for words to answer him! 'No, Lucius,' she said, 'it cannot be changed now.'
'So be it, mother; I will not ask again,' and then he moodily returned to his books, while she returned to her thoughts. Ah, think of her misery!
CHAPTER XIV.
TELLING ALL THAT HAPPENED BENEATH THE LAMP-POST.
When Felix Graham left Noningsby and made his way up to London, he came at least to one resolution which he intended to be an abiding one. That idea of a marriage with a moulded wife should at any rate be abandoned. Whether it might be his great destiny to be the husband of Madeline Staveley, or whether he might fail in achieving this purpose, he declared to himself that it would be impossible that he should ever now become the husband of Mary Snow. And the ease with which his conscience settled itself on this matter as soon as he had received from the judge that gleam of hope astonished even himself. He immediately declared to himself that he could not marry Mary Snow without perjury! How could he stand with her before the altar and swear that he would love her, seeing that he did not love her at all,—seeing that he altogether loved some one else? He acknowledged that he had made an ass of himself in this affair of Mary Snow. This moulding of a wife had failed with him, he said, as it always must fail with every man. But he would not carry his folly further. He would go to Mary Snow, tell her the truth, and then bear whatever injury her angry father might be able to inflict on him. Independently of that angry father he would of course do for Mary Snow all that his circumstances would admit.
Perhaps the gentleman of a poetic turn of mind whom Mary had consented to meet beneath the lamp-post might assist him in his views; but whether this might be so or not, he would not throw
