from
her words whether there might really be cause to apprehend danger.
How was he to know what was really inside her mind; what were her
actual thoughts and inward reasonings on this subject; what private
knowledge she might have which was still kept back from him? In the
ordinary intercourse of the world when one man seeks advice from
another, he who is consulted demands in the first place that he shall
be put in possession of all the circumstances of the case. How else
will it be possible that he should give advice? But in matters of law
it is different. If I, having committed a crime, were to confess my
criminality to the gentleman engaged to defend me, might he not be
called on to say: "Then, O my friend, confess it also to the judge;
and so let justice be done. Ruat coelum, and the rest of it?" But
who would pay a lawyer for counsel such as that?

In this case there was no question of payment. The advice to be given
was to a widowed woman from an experienced man of the world; but,
nevertheless, he could only make his calculations as to her peculiar
case in the way in which he ordinarily calculated. Could it be
possible that anything had been kept back from him? Were there facts
unknown to him, but known to her, which would be terrible, fatal,
damning to his sweet friend if proved before all the world? He could
not bring himself to ask her, but yet it was so material that he
should know! Twenty years ago, at the time of the trial, he had at
one time thought,--it hardly matters to tell what, but those thoughts
had not been favourable to her cause. Then his mind had altered,
and he had learned,--as lawyers do learn,--to believe in his own
case. And when the day of triumph had come, he had triumphed loudly,
commiserating his dear friend for the unjust suffering to which she
had been subjected, and speaking in no low or modified tone as to
the grasping, greedy cruelty of that man of Groby Park. Nevertheless,
through it all, he had felt that Round and Crook had not made the
most of their case.

And now he sat, thinking, not so much whether or no she had been in
any way guilty with reference to that will, as whether the counsel
he should give her ought in any way to be based on the possibility
of her having been thus guilty. Nothing might be so damning to her
cause as that he should make sure of her innocence, if she were not
innocent; and yet he would not ask her the question. If innocent, why
was it that she was no