"I suppose he has done his best on his side," said Mason.

"Undoubtedly I have,--as I should have done on yours, had it so chanced that I had been honoured by holding a brief from your attorneys. But the communication which I am going to make now I make not as a lawyer but as a friend. Mr. Mason, my client Lady Mason, and her son Lucius Mason, are prepared to make over to you the full possession of the estate which they have held under the name of Orley Farm."

The tidings, as so given, were far from conveying to the sense of the hearer the full information which they bore. He heard the words, and at the moment conceived that Orley Farm was intended to come into his hands by some process to which it was thought desirable that he should be brought to agree. He was to be induced to buy it, or to be bought over from further opposition by some concession of an indefinitely future t.i.tle. But that the estate was to become his at once, without purchase, and by the mere free will of his hated relatives, was an idea that he did not realise.

"Mr. Furnival," he said, "what future steps I shall take I do not yet know. That I have been robbed of my property I am as firmly convinced now as ever. But I tell you fairly, and I tell Mr. Round so too, that I will have no dealings with that woman."

"Your father's widow, sir," said Mr. Furnival, "is an unhappy lady, who is now doing her best to atone for the only fault of which I believe her to have been guilty. If you were not unreasonable as well as angry, you would understand that the proposition which I am now making to you is one which should force you to forgive any injury which she may hitherto have done to you. Your half-brother Lucius Mason has instructed me to make over to you the possession of Orley Farm." These last words Mr. Furnival uttered very slowly, fixing his keen grey eyes full upon the face of Joseph Mason as he did so, and then turning round to the attorney he said, "I presume your client will understand me now."

"The estate is yours, Mr. Mason," said Round. "You have nothing to do but to take possession of it."

"What do you mean?" said Mason, turning round upon Furnival.

"Exactly what I say. Your half-brother Lucius surrenders to you the estate."

"Without payment?"

"Yes; without payment. On his doing so you will of course absolve him from all liability on account of the proceeds of the property while in his hands."

"That will be a matter of course," said Mr. Round.

"Then she has robbed me," said Mason, jumping up to his feet. "By ----, the will was forged after all."

"Mr. Mason," said Mr. Round, "if you have a spark of generosity in you, you will accept the offer made to you without asking any question. By no such questioning can you do yourself any good,--nor can you do that poor lady any harm."

"I knew it was so," he said loudly, and as he spoke he twice walked the length of the room. "I knew it was so;--twenty years ago I said the same. She forged the will. I ask you, as my lawyer, Mr.

Round,--did she not forge the will herself?"

"I shall answer no such question, Mr. Mason."

"Then by heavens I'll expose you. If I spend the whole value of the estate in doing it I'll expose you, and have her punished yet. The slippery villain! For twenty years she has robbed me."

"Mr. Mason, you are forgetting yourself in your pa.s.sion," said Mr.

Furnival. "What you have to look for now is the recovery of the property." But here Mr. Furnival showed that he had not made himself master of Joseph Mason's character.

"No," shouted the angry man;--"no, by heaven. What I have first to look to is her punishment, and that of those who have a.s.sisted her. I knew she had done it,--and Dockwrath knew it. Had I trusted him, she would now have been in gaol."

Mr. Furnival and Mr. Round were both desirous of having the matter quietly arranged, and with this view were willing to put up with much. The man had been ill used. When he declared for the fortieth time that he had been robbed for twenty years, they could not deny it. When with horrid oaths he swore that that will had been a forgery, they could not contradict him. When he reviled the laws of his country, which had done so much to facilitate the escape of a criminal, they had no arguments to prove that he was wrong. They bore with him in his rage, hoping that a sense of his own self-interest might induce him to listen to reason. But it was all in vain. The property was sweet, but that sweetness was tasteless when compared to the sweetness of revenge.

"Nothing shall make me tamper with justice;--nothing," said he.

"But even if it were as you say, you cannot do anything to her," said Round.

"I'll try," said Mason. "You have been my attorney, and what you know in the matter you are bound to tell. And I'll make you tell, sir."

"Upon my word," said Round, "this is beyond bearing. Mr. Mason, I must trouble you to walk out of my office." And then he rang the bell. "Tell Mr. Mat I want to see him." But before that younger partner had joined his father Joseph Mason had gone. "Mat," said the old man, "I don't interfere with you in many things, but on this I must insist. As long as my name is in the firm Mr. Joseph Mason of Groby shall not be among our customers."

"The man's a fool," said Mr. Furnival. "The end of all that will be that two years will go by before he gets his property; and, in the meantime, the house and all about it will go to ruin."

In these days there was a delightful family concord between Mr.

Furnival and his wife, and perhaps we may be allowed to hope that the peace was permanent. Martha Biggs had not been in Harley Street since we last saw her there, and was now walking round Red Lion Square by the hour with some kindred spirit, complaining bitterly of the return which had been made for her friendship. "What I endured, and what I was prepared to endure for that woman, no breathing creature can ever know," said Martha Biggs, to that other Martha; "and now--"

"I suppose the fact is he don't like to see you there," said the other.

"And is that a reason?" said our Martha. "Had I been in her place I would not have put my foot in his house again till I was a.s.sured that my friend should be as welcome there as myself. But then, perhaps, my ideas of friendship may be called romantic."

But though there were heart-burnings and war in Red Lion Square, there was sweet peace in Harley Street. Mrs. Furnival had learned that beyond all doubt Lady Mason was an unfortunate woman on whose behalf her husband was using his best energies as a lawyer; and though rumours had begun to reach her that were very injurious to the lady's character, she did not on that account feel animosity against her. Had Lady Mason been guilty of all the sins in the calendar except one, Mrs. Furnival could find it within her heart to forgive her.

But Sophia was now more interested about Lady Mason than was her mother, and during those days of the trial was much more eager to learn the news as it became known. She had said nothing to her mother about Lucius, nor had she said anything as to Augustus Staveley. Miss Furnival was a lady who on such subjects did not want the a.s.sistance of a mother's counsel. Then, early on the morning that followed the trial, they heard the verdict and knew that Lady Mason was free.

"I am so glad," said Mrs. Furnival; "and I am sure it was your papa's doing."

"But we will hope that she was really innocent," said Sophia.

"Oh, yes; of course; and so I suppose she was. I am sure I hope so.

But, nevertheless, we all know that it was going very much against her."

"I believe papa never thought she was guilty for a moment."

"I don't know, my dear; your papa never talks of the clients for whom he is engaged. But what a thing it is for Lucius! He would have lost every acre of the property."

"Yes; it's a great thing for him, certainly." And then she began to consider whether the standing held by Lucius Mason in the world was not even yet somewhat precarious.

It was on the same day--in the evening--that she received her lover's letter. She was alone when she read it, and she made herself quite master of its contents before she sat herself to think in what way it would be expedient that she should act. "I am bound to relinquish to my brother-in-law my t.i.tle to Orley Farm." Why should he be so bound, unless--? And then she also came to that conclusion which Mr. Round had reached, and which Joseph Mason had reached, when they heard that the property was to be given up. "Yes, Sophia, I am a beggar," the letter went on to say. She was very sorry, deeply sorry;--so, at least, she said to herself. As she sat there alone, she took out her handkerchief and pressed it to her eyes. Then, having restored it to her pocket, after moderate use, she refolded her letter, and put that into the same receptacle.

"Papa," said she, that evening, "what will Mr. Lucius Mason do now?

will he remain at Orley Farm?"

"No, my dear. He will leave Orley Farm, and, I think, will go abroad with his mother."

"And who will have Orley Farm?"

"His brother Joseph, I believe."

"And what will Lucius have?"

"I cannot say. I do not know that he will have anything. His mother has an income of her own, and he, I suppose, will go into some profession."

"Oh, indeed. Is not that very sad for him, poor fellow?" In answer to which her father made no remark.

That night, in her own room, she answered her lover's letter, and her answer was as follows:--

Harley Street, March, 18--.

MY DEAR MR. MASON,

I need hardly tell you that I was grieved to the heart by the tidings conveyed in your letter. I will not ask you for that secret which you withhold from me, feeling that I have no t.i.tle to inquire into it; nor will I attempt to guess at the cause which induces you to give up to your brother the property which you were always taught to regard as your own. That you are actuated by n.o.ble motives I am sure; and you may be sure of this, that I shall respect you quite as highly in your adversity as I have ever done in your prosperity. That you will make your way in the world, I shall never doubt; and it may be that the labour which you will now encounter will raise you to higher standing than any you could have achieved, had the property remained in your possession.