'It would keep him away from the court.'
'Yes, and I should never see him again! What will he do when he hears it? Perhaps it would be better that he should go without seeing me.'
'He would not do that.'
'It would be better. If they take me to the prison, I will never see him again. His eyes would kill me. Do you ever watch him and see the pride that there is in his eye? He has never yet known what disgrace means; and now I, his mother, have brought him to this!'
It was all in vain as far as that night was concerned. Lady Mason would give no such permission. But Mrs. Orme did exact from her a kind of promise that Lucius should be told on the next evening, if it then appeared, from what Mr. Aram should say, that the result of the trial was likely to be against them.
Lucius Mason spent his evening alone; and though he had as yet heard none of the truth, his mind was not at ease, nor was he happy at heart. Though he had no idea of his mother's guilt, he did conceive that after this trial it would be impossible that they should remain at Orley Farm. His mother's intended marriage with Sir Peregrine, and then the manner in which that engagement had been broken off; the course of the trial, and its celebrity; the enmity of Dockwrath; and lastly, his own inability to place himself on terms of friendship with those people who were still his mother's nearest friends, made him feel that in any event it would be well for them to change their residence. What could life do for him there at Orley Farm, after all that had passed? He had gone to Liverpool and bought guano, and now the sacks were lying in his barn unopened. He had begun to drain, and the ugly unfinished lines of earth were lying across his fields. He had no further interest in it, and felt that he could no longer go to work on that ground as though he were in truth its master.
But then, as he thought of his future hopes, his place of residence and coming life, there was one other beyond himself and his mother to whom his mind reverted. What would Sophia wish that he should do?—his own Sophia,—she who had promised him that her heart should be with his through all the troubles of this trial? Before he went to bed that night he wrote to Sophia, and told her what were his troubles and what his hopes. 'This will be over in two days more,' he said, 'and then I will come to you. You will see me, I trust, the day after this letter reaches you; but nevertheless I cannot debar myself from the satisfaction of writing. I am not happy, for I am dissatisfied with what they are doing for my mother; and it is only when I think of you, and the assurance of your love, that I can feel anything like content. It is not a pleasant thing to sit by and hear one's mother charged with the foulest
