'Ah, well; we will not talk about that. And there will be two days more you say?'
'So said Aram, the attorney.'
'God help her;—may God help her! It would be very dreadful for a man, but for a woman the burden is insupportable.'
Then they both sat silent for a while, during which Peregrine was engrossed in thinking how he could turn his grandfather from the conversation.
'And you heard no one express any opinion?' asked Sir Peregrine, after a pause.
'You mean about Lady Mason?' And Peregrine began to perceive that his mother was right, and that it would have been well if possible to avoid any words about the trial.
'Do they think that she will—will be acquitted? Of course the people there were talking about it?'
'Yes, sir, they were talking about it. But I really don't know as to any opinion. You see, the chief witnesses have not been examined.'
'And you, Perry, what do you think?'
'I, sir! Well, I was altogether on her side till I heard Sir Richard Leatherham.'
'And then———?'
'Then I did not know what to think. I suppose it's all right; but one never can understand what those lawyers are at. When Mr. Chaffanbrass got up to examine Dockwrath, he seemed to be just as confident on his side as the other fellow had been on the other side. I don't think I'll have any more wine, sir, thank you.'
But Sir Peregrine did not move. He sat in his old accustomed way, nursing one leg over the knee of the other, and thinking of the manner in which she had fallen at his feet, and confessed it all. Had he married her, and gone with her proudly into the court,—as he would have done,—and had he then heard a verdict of guilty given by the jury;—nay, had he heard such proof of her guilt as would have convinced himself, it would have killed him. He felt, as he sat there, safe over his own fireside, that his safety was due to her generosity. Had that other calamity fallen upon him, he could not have survived it. His head would have fallen low before the eyes of those who had known him since they had known anything, and would never have been raised again. In his own spirit, in his inner life, the blow had come to him; but it was due to her effort on his behalf that he had not been stricken in public. When he had discussed the matter with Mrs. Orme, he had seemed in a measure to forget this. It had not at any rate been the thought which rested with the greatest weight upon his mind. Then he had considered how she, whose life had been stainless as driven snow, should bear
