l had been mad, and the
law said that he was mad when he had made his will,--and the Italian
woman went away, raging, into obscurity.

The Italian woman was conquered, and now the battle was open and free
between the young Earl and the claimant Countess. Applications were
made on behalf of the Countess for funds from the estate wherewith to
prove the claim, and to a certain limited amount they were granted.
Such had been the life of the late Earl that it was held that the
cost of all litigation resulting from his misdeeds should be paid
from his estate;--but ready money was wanted, immediate ready
money, to be at the disposal of the Countess to any amount needed
by her agent, and this was hardly to be obtained. By this time
public sympathy ran almost entirely with the Earl. Though it was
acknowledged that the late lord was mad, and though it had become
a cause of rejoicing that the Italian woman had been sent away
penniless, howling into obscurity, because of the old man's madness,
still it was believed that he had written the truth when he declared
that the marriage had been a mock marriage. It would be better for
the English world that the young Earl should be a rich man, fit to
do honour to his position, fit to marry the daughter of a duke, fit
to carry on the glory of the English peerage, than that a woman, ill
reputed in the world, should be established as a Countess, with a
daughter dowered with tens of thousands, as to whom it was already
said that she was in love with a tailor's son. Nothing could be more
touching, more likely to awaken sympathy, than the manner in which
Josephine Murray had been carried away in marriage, and then roughly
told by the man who should have protected her from every harshly
blowing wind of heaven, that he had deceived her and that she was not
his wife. No usage to which woman had ever been subjected, as has
been said before, was more adapted to elicit compassion and energetic
aid. But nineteen years had now passed by since the deed was done,
and the facts were forgotten. One energetic friend there still
was,--or we may say two, the tailor and his son Daniel. But public
belief ran against the Countess, and nobody who was anybody in the
world would give her her title. Bets were laid, two and three to one
against her; and it was believed that she was an impostor. The Earl
had all the glory of success over his first opponent, and the loud
boasting of self-confident barristers buoyed up