"Father, why don't you speak out plainly to the gentleman? He will forgive you, if you do that."

"Am I to criminate myself, sir?" said Mr. Mollett, still in the humblest voice in the world, and hardly above his breath.

After all, this fox had still some running left in him, Mr.

Prendergast thought to himself. He was not even yet so thoroughly beaten but what he had a dodge or two remaining at his service. "Am I to criminate myself, sir?" he asked, as innocently as a child might ask whether or no she were to stand longer in the corner.

"You may do as you like about that, Mr. Mollett," said the lawyer; "I am neither a magistrate nor a policeman; and at the present moment I am not acting even as a lawyer. I am the friend of a family whom you have misused and defrauded most outrageously. You have killed the father of that family--"

"Oh, gracious!" said Mrs. Mollett.

"Yes, madam, he has done so; and nearly broken the heart of that poor lady, and driven her son from the house which is his own. You have done all this in order that you might swindle them out of money for your vile indulgences, while you left your own wife and your own child to starve at home. In the whole course of my life I never came across so mean a scoundrel; and now you chaffer with me as to whether or no you shall criminate yourself! Scoundrel and villain as you are--a double-dyed scoundrel, still there are reasons why I shall not wish to have you gibbeted, as you deserve."

"Oh, sir, he has done nothing that would come to that!" said the poor wife.

"You had better let the gentleman finish," said the daughter. "He doesn't mean that father will be hung."

"It would be too good for him," said Mr. Prendergast, who was now absolutely almost out of temper. "But I do not wish to be his executioner. For the peace of that family which you have so brutally plundered and ill used, I shall remain quiet,--if I can attain my object without a public prosecution. But, remember, that I guarantee nothing to you. For aught I know you may be in gaol before the night is come. All I have to tell you is this, that if by obtaining a confession from you I am able to restore my friends to their property without a prosecution, I shall do so. Now you may answer me or not, as you like."

"Trust him, father," said the daughter. "It will be best for you."

"But I have told him everything," said Mollett. "What more does he want of me?"

"I want you to give your written acknowledgment that when you went through that ceremony of marriage with Miss Wainwright in Dorsetshire, you committed bigamy, and that you knew at that time that you were doing so."

Mr. Mollett, as a matter of course, gave him the written doc.u.ment, and then Mr. Prendergast took his leave, bowing graciously to the two women, and not deigning to cast his eyes again on the abject wretch who crouched by the fire.

"Don't be hard on a poor creature who has fallen so low," said Mrs.

Mollett as he left the room. But Mary Mollett junior followed him to the door and opened it for him. "Sir," she said, addressing him with some hesitation as he was preparing to depart.

"Well, Miss Mollett; if I could do anything for you it would gratify me, for I sincerely feel for you,--both for you and for your mother."

"Thank you, sir; I don't know that there is anything you can do for us--except to spare him. The thief on the cross was forgiven, sir."

"But the thief on the cross repented."

"And who shall say that he does not repent? You cannot tell of his heart by scripture word, as you can of that other one. But our Lord has taught us that it is good to forgive the worst of sinners.

Tell that poor lady to think of this when she remembers him in her prayers."

"I will, Miss Mollett; indeed, indeed I will;" and then as he left her he gave her his hand in token of respect. And so he walked away out of Spinny Lane.

CHAPTER XLI.

THE LOBBY OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.

Mr. Prendergast as he walked out of Spinny Lane, and back to St.

Botolph's church, and as he returned thence again to Bloomsbury Square in his cab, had a good deal of which to think. In the first place it must be explained that he was not altogether self-satisfied with the manner in which things had gone. That he would have made almost any sacrifice to recover the property for Herbert Fitzgerald, is certainly true; and it is as true that he would have omitted no possible effort to discover all that which he had now discovered, almost without necessity for any effort. But nevertheless he was not altogether pleased; he had made up his mind a month or two ago that Lady Fitzgerald was not the lawful wife of her husband; and had come to this conclusion on, as he still thought, sufficient evidence. But now he was proved to have been wrong; his character for shrewdness and discernment would be damaged, and his great ally and chum Mr.

Die, the Chancery barrister, would be down on him with unmitigated sarcasm. A man who has been right so frequently as Mr. Prendergast, does not like to find that he is ever in the wrong. And then, had his decision not have been sudden, might not the life of that old baronet have been saved?

Mr. Prendergast could not help feeling this in some degree as he drove away to Bloomsbury Square; but nevertheless he had also the feeling of having achieved a great triumph. It was with him as with a man who has made a fortune when he has declared to his friends that he should infallibly be ruined. It piques him to think how wrong he has been in his prophecy; but still it is very pleasant to have made one's fortune.

When he found himself at the top of Chancery Lane in Holborn, he stopped his cab and got out of it. He had by that time made up his mind as to what he would do; so he walked briskly down to Stone Buildings, and nodding to the old clerk, with whom he was very intimate, asked if he could see Mr. Die. It was his second visit to those chambers that morning, seeing that he had been there early in the day, introducing Herbert to his new Gamaliel. "Yes, Mr. Die is in," said the clerk, smiling; and so Mr. Prendergast pa.s.sed on into the well-known dingy temple of the Chancery G.o.d himself.

There he remained for full an hour, a message in the meanwhile having been sent out to Herbert Fitzgerald, begging him not to leave the chambers till he should have seen Mr. Die; "and your friend Mr.

Prendergast is with him," said the clerk. "A very nice gentleman is Mr. Prendergast, uncommon clever too; but it seems to me that he never can hold his own when he comes across our Mr. Die."

At the end of the hour Herbert was summoned into the sanctum, and there he found Mr. Die sitting in his accustomed chair, with his body much bent, nursing the calf of his leg, which was always enveloped in a black, well-fitting close pantaloon, and smiling very blandly. Mr.

Prendergast had in his countenance not quite so sweet an aspect. Mr.

Die had repeated to him, perhaps once too often, a very well-known motto of his; one by the aid of which he professed to have steered himself safely through the shoals of life--himself and perhaps some others. It was a motto which he would have loved to see inscribed over the great gates of the n.o.ble inn to which he belonged; and which, indeed, a few years since might have been inscribed there with much justice. "Festina lente," Mr. Die would say to all those who came to him in any sort of hurry. And then when men accused him of being dilatory by premeditation, he would say no, he had always recommended despatch. "Festina," he would say; "festina" by all means; but "festina lente." The doctrine had at any rate thriven with the teacher, for Mr. Die had ama.s.sed a large fortune.

Herbert at once saw that Mr. Prendergast was a little fluttered.

Judging from what he had seen of the lawyer in Ireland, he would have said that it was impossible to flutter Mr. Prendergast; but in truth greatness is great only till it encounters greater greatness. Mars and Apollo are terrible and magnificent G.o.ds till one is enabled to see them seated at the foot of Jove's great throne. That Apollo, Mr.

Prendergast, though greatly in favour with the old Chancery Jupiter, had now been reminded that he had also on this occasion driven his team too fast, and been nearly as indiscreet in his own rash offering.

"We are very sorry to keep you waiting here, Mr. Fitzgerald," said Mr. Die, giving his hand to the young man without, however, rising from his chair; "especially sorry, seeing that it is your first day in harness. But your friend Mr. Prendergast thinks it as well that we should talk over together a piece of business which does not seem as yet to be quite settled."

Herbert of course declared that he had been in no hurry to go away; he was, he said, quite ready to talk over anything; but to his mind at that moment nothing occurred more momentous than the nature of the agreement between himself and Mr. Die. There was an honorarium which it was presumed Mr. Die would expect, and which Herbert Fitzgerald had ready for the occasion.

"I hardly know how to describe what has taken place this morning since I saw you," said Mr. Prendergast, whose features told plainly that something more important than the honorarium was now on the tapis.

"What has taken place?" said Herbert, whose mind now flew off to Castle Richmond.

"Gently, gently," said Mr. Die; "in the whole course of my legal experience,--and that now has been a very long experience,--I have never come across so,--so singular a family history as this of yours, Mr. Fitzgerald. When our friend Mr. Prendergast here, on his return from Ireland, first told me the whole of it, I was inclined to think that he had formed a right and just decision--"

"There can be no doubt about that," said Herbert.

"Stop a moment, my dear sir; wait half a moment--a just decision, I say--regarding the evidence of the facts as conclusive. But I was not quite so certain that he might not have been a little--premature perhaps may be too strong a word--a little too a.s.sured in taking those facts as proved."

"But they were proved," said Herbert.

"I shall always maintain that there was ample ground to induce me to recommend your poor father so to regard them," said Mr. Prendergast, stoutly. "You must remember that those men would instantly have been at work on the other side; indeed, one of them did attempt it."

"Without any signal success, I believe," said Mr. Die.

"My father thought you were quite right, Mr. Prendergast," said Herbert, with a tear forming in his eye; "and though it may be possible that the affair hurried him to his death, there was no alternative but that he should know the whole." At this Mr.

Prendergast seemed to wince as he sat in his chair. "And I am sure of this," continued Herbert, "that had he been left to the villanies of those two men, his last days would have been much less comfortable than they were. My mother feels that quite as strongly as I do." And then Mr. Prendergast looked as though he were somewhat rea.s.sured.

"It was a difficult crisis in which to act," said Mr. Prendergast, "and I can only say that I did so to the best of my poor judgment."

"It was a difficult crisis in which to act," said Mr. Die, a.s.senting.

"But why is all this brought up now?" asked Herbert.

"Festina lente," said Mr. Die; "lente, lente lente; always lente. The more haste we make in trying to understand each other, with the less speed shall we arrive at that object."