ndeed I will not, Mrs. Furnival."

"And there is really a lawsuit then?" Mrs. Furnival persisted in
asking.

"I thought you would know all about it," said Mrs. Orme, "as Mr.
Furnival manages Lady Mason's law business. I thought that perhaps it
was about that that you had come."

Then Mrs. Furnival explained that she knew nothing whatever about
Lady Mason's affairs, that hitherto she had not believed that there
was any trial or any lawsuit, and gradually explained the cause of
all her trouble. She did not do this without sundry interruptions,
caused both by her own feelings and by Mrs. Orme's exclamations. But
at last it all came forth; and before she had done she was calling
her husband Tom, and appealing to her listener for sympathy.

"But indeed it's a mistake, Mrs. Furnival. It is indeed. There are
reasons which make me quite sure of it." So spoke Mrs. Orme. How
could Lady Mason have been in love with Mr. Furnival,--if such a
state of things could be possible under any circumstances,--seeing
that she had been engaged to marry Sir Peregrine? Mrs. Orme did not
declare her reasons, but repeated with very positive assurances her
knowledge that Mrs. Furnival was labouring under some very grievous
error.

"But why should she always be at his chambers? I have seen her there
twice, Mrs. Orme. I have indeed;--with my own eyes."

Mrs. Orme would have thought nothing of it if Lady Mason had
been seen there every day for a week together, and regarded Mrs.
Furnival's suspicions as an hallucination bordering on insanity. A
woman be in love with Mr. Furnival! A very pretty woman endeavour
to entice away from his wife the affection of such a man as that!
As these ideas passed through Mrs. Orme's mind she did not perhaps
remember that Sir Peregrine, who was more than ten years Mr.
Furnival's senior, had been engaged to marry the same lady. But then
she herself loved Sir Peregrine dearly, and she had no such feeling
with reference to Mr. Furnival. She however did what was most within
her power to do to allay the suffering under which her visitor
laboured, and explained to her the position in which Lady Mason was
placed. "I do not think she can see you," she ended by saying, "for
she is in very great trouble."

"To be tried for perjury!" said Mrs. Furnival, out of whose heart all
hatred towards Lady Mason was quickly departing. Had she heard that
she was to be tried for murder,--that she had been convicted for
murder,--it wou