d. I compliment him on the firmness of his
character, on that equable temperament which has enabled him to sit
through all this trial, and to look without dismay on the unfortunate
lady whom he has considered it to be his duty to accuse of perjury. I
did not think that I should live to fight this battle again. But so
it is; and as I had but little doubt of victory then,--so have I none
now. Gentlemen of the jury, I must occupy some of your time and of
the time of the court in going through the evidence which has been
adduced by my learned friend against my client; but I almost feel
that I shall be detaining you unnecessarily, so sure I am that the
circumstances, as they have been already explained to you, could not
justify you in giving a verdict against her."

As Mr. Furnival's speech occupied fully three hours, I will not
trouble my readers with the whole of it. He began by describing the
former trial, and giving his own recollections as to Lady Mason's
conduct on that occasion. In doing this, he fully acknowledged on her
behalf that she did give as evidence that special statement which her
opponents now endeavoured to prove to have been false. "If it were
the case," he said, "that that codicil--or that pretended codicil,
was not executed by old Sir Joseph Mason, and was not witnessed by
Usbech, Kenneby, and Bridget Bolster,--then, in that case, Lady
Mason has been guilty of perjury." Mr. Furnival, as he made this
acknowledgement, studiously avoided the face of Lady Mason. But as
he made this assertion, almost everybody in the court except her own
counsel did look at her. Joseph Mason opposite and Dockwrath fixed
their gaze closely upon her. Sir Richard Leatherham and Mr. Steelyard
turned their eyes towards her, probably without meaning to do so.
The judge looked over his spectacles at her. Even Mr. Aram glanced
round at her surreptitiously; and Lucius turned his face upon his
mother's, almost with an air of triumph. But she bore it all without
flinching;--bore it all without flinching, though the state of her
mind at that moment must have been pitiable. And Mrs. Orme, who held
her hand all the while, knew that it was so. The hand which rested in
hers was twitched as it were convulsively, but the culprit gave no
outward sign of her guilt.

Mr. Furnival then read much of the evidence given at the former
trial, and especially showed how the witnesses had then failed to
prove that Usbech had not been required to write