from the face of the earth. And there were great
practitioners from Germany, men very skilled in the use of questions,
who profess that the tongue of man, if adequately skilful, may always
prevail on guilt to disclose itself; who believe in the power of
their own craft to produce truth, as our forefathers believed in
torture; and sometimes with the same result. And of course all that
was great on the British bench, and all that was famous at the
British bar was there,--men very unlike their German brethren, men
who thought that guilt never should be asked to tell of itself,--men
who were customarily but unconsciously shocked whenever unwary guilt
did tell of itself. Men these were, mostly of high and noble feeling,
born and bred to live with upright hearts and clean hands, but taught
by the peculiar tenets of their profession to think that that which
was high and noble in their private intercourse with the world need
not also be so esteemed in their legal practice. And there were
Italians there, good-humoured, joking, easy fellows, who would laugh
their clients in and out of their difficulties; and Spaniards, very
grave and serious, who doubted much in their minds whether justice
might not best be bought and sold; and our brethren from the United
States were present also, very eager to show that in this country
law, and justice also, were clouded and nearly buried beneath their
wig and gown.

All these and all this did Mr. Furnival desert for the space of
twenty-four hours in order that he might comply with the request of
Lady Mason. Had she known what it was that she was calling on him
to leave, no doubt she would have borne her troubles for another
week,--for another fortnight, till those Rustums at Birmingham had
brought their labours to a close. She would not have robbed the
English bar of one of the warmest supporters of its present mode
of practice, even for a day, had she known how much that support
was needed at the present moment. But she had not known; and Mr.
Furnival, moved by her woman's plea, had not been hard enough in his
heart to refuse her.

When she entered the room she was dressed very plainly as was her
custom, and a thick veil covered her face; but still she was dressed
with care. There was nothing of the dowdiness of the lone lorn woman
about her, none of that lanky, washed-out appearance which sorrow and
trouble so often give to females. Had she given way to dowdiness, or
suffered herself to b