egrine as long as I have. And if--if--if--but it does not matter.
I am very sorry for Lady Mason,--very. I think she is a woman cruelly
used by her own connections; but my sympathies with her would
be warmer if she had refrained from using her power over an old
gentleman like Sir Peregrine, in the way she has done." In all which
expression of sentiment the reader will know that poor dear Lady
Staveley was wrong from the beginning to the end.

"For my part," said the judge, "I don't see what else she was to do.
If Sir Peregrine asked her, how could she refuse?"

"My dear!" said Lady Staveley.

"According to that, papa, every lady must marry any gentleman that
asks her," said Mrs. Arbuthnot.

"When a lady is under so deep a weight of obligation I don't know how
she is to refuse. My idea is that Sir Peregrine should not have asked
her."

"And mine too," said Felix. "Unless indeed he did it under an
impression that he could fight for her better as her husband than
simply as a friend."

"And I feel sure that that is what he did think," said Madeline, from
the further side of the table. And her voice sounded in Graham's ears
as the voice of Eve may have sounded to Adam. No; let him do what he
might in the world;--whatever might be the form in which his future
career should be fashioned, one thing was clearly impossible to him.
He could not marry Mary Snow. Had he never learned to know what were
the true charms of feminine grace and loveliness, it might have been
possible for him to do so, and to have enjoyed afterwards a fair
amount of contentment. But now even contentment would be impossible
to him under such a lot as that. Not only would he be miserable, but
the woman whom he married would be wretched also. It may be said that
he made up his mind definitely, while sitting in that arm-chair, that
he would not marry Mary Snow. Poor Mary Snow! Her fault in the matter
had not been great.

When Graham was again in his room, and the servant who was obliged
to undress him had left him, he sat over his fire, wrapped in his
dressing-gown, bethinking himself what he would do. "I will tell the
judge everything," he said at last. "Then, if he will let me into his
house after that, I must fight my own battle." And so he betook
himself to bed.

CHAPTER XLIX

MRS. FURNIVAL CAN'T PUT UP WITH IT

When Lady Mason last left the chambers of her lawyer in Lincoln's
Inn, she was watched by a stout lady as she passed through