Think what her feelings would be
if she were summoned before a magistrate without any preparation!"

"No magistrate would listen to such a charge," said Sir Peregrine.

"In that he must be guided by the evidence."

"I would sooner throw up my commission than lend myself in any way to
a proceeding so iniquitous."

This was all very well, and the existence of such a feeling showed
great generosity, and perhaps also poetic chivalry on the part of
Sir Peregrine Orme; but it was not the way of the world, and so Mr.
Furnival was obliged to explain. Magistrates would listen to the
charge--would be forced to listen to the charge,--if the evidence
were apparently sound. A refusal on the part of a magistrate to do
so would not be an act of friendship to Lady Mason, as Mr. Furnival
endeavoured to explain. "And you wish to see her?" Sir Peregrine
asked at last.

"I think she should be told; but as she is in your house, I will,
of course, do nothing in which you do not concur." Upon which
Sir Peregrine rang the bell and desired the servant to take his
compliments to Lady Mason and beg her attendance in the library if
it were quite convenient. "Tell her," said Sir Peregrine, "that Mr.
Furnival is here."

When the message was given to her she was seated with Mrs. Orme, and
at the moment she summoned strength to say that she would obey the
invitation, without displaying any special emotion while the servant
was in the room; but when the door was shut, her friend looked at her
and saw that she was as pale as death. She was pale and her limbs
quivered, and that look of agony, which now so often marked her face,
was settled on her brow. Mrs. Orme had never yet seen her with such
manifest signs of suffering as she wore at this instant.

"I suppose I must go to them," she said, slowly rising from her seat;
and it seemed to Mrs. Orme that she was forced to hold by the table
to support herself.

"Mr. Furnival is a friend, is he not?"

"Oh, yes! a kind friend, but--"

"They shall come in here if you like it better, dear."

"Oh, no! I will go to them. It would not do that I should seem so
weak. What must you think of me to see me so?"

"I do not wonder at it, dear," said Mrs. Orme, coming round to her;
"such cruelty would kill me. I wonder at your strength rather than
your weakness." And then she kissed her. What was there about the
woman that had made all those fond of her that came near her?

Mrs. Orme walked with her across