“But who says so? How is it known? If my father did not sign it, it is a forgery; and who forged it? Those wretches have bought over someone and you have been deceived, Mrs. Orme. It is not of the property I am thinking, but of my mother. If it were as you say, my mother must have known it?”
“Ah! yes.”
“And you mean that she did know it; that she knew it was a forgery?”
“Oh! Mr. Mason.”
“Heaven and earth! Let me go to her. If she were to tell me so herself I would not believe it of her. Ah! she has told you?”
“Yes; she has told me.”
“Then she is mad. This has been too much for her, and her brain has gone with it. Let me go to her, Mrs. Orme.”
“No, no; you must not go to her.” And Mrs. Orme put herself directly before the door. “She is not mad—not now. Then, at that time, we must think she was so. It is not so now.”
“I cannot understand you.” And he put his left hand up to his forehead as though to steady his thoughts. “I do not understand you. If the will be a forgery, who did it?”
This question she could not answer at the moment. She was still standing against the door, and her eyes fell to the ground. “Who did it?” he repeated. “Whose hand wrote my father’s name?”
“You must be merciful, Mr. Mason.”
“Merciful;—to whom?”
“To your mother.”
“Merciful to my mother! Mrs. Orme, speak out to me. If the will was forged, who forged it? You cannot mean to tell me that she did it!”
She did not answer him at the moment in words, but coming close up to him she took both his hands in hers, and then looked steadfastly up into his eyes. His face had now become almost convulsed with emotion, and his brow was very black. “Do you wish me to believe that my mother forged the will herself?” Then again he paused, but she said nothing. “Woman, it’s a lie,” he exclaimed; and then tearing his hands from her, shaking her off, and striding away with quick footsteps, he threw himself on a sofa that stood in the furthest part of the room.
She paused for a moment and then followed him very gently. She followed him and stood over him in silence for a moment, as he lay with his face from her. “Mr. Mason,” she said at last, “you told me that you would bear this like a man.”
But he made her no answer, and she went on. “Mr. Mason, it is, as I tell you. Years and years ago, when you were a baby, and when she thought that your father was unjust to you—for your sake—to remedy that injustice, she did this thing.”
“What; forged his name! It must be a lie. Though an angel came to tell me so, it would be a lie! What; my mother!” And now he turned round and faced her, still however lying on the sofa.
“It is true, Mr. Mason. Oh, how I wish that it were not! But you must forgive her. It is years ago, and she has repented of it, Sir Peregrine has forgiven her—and I have done so.”
And then she told him the whole story. She told him why the marriage had been broken off, and described to him the manner in which the truth had been made known to Sir Peregrine. It need hardly be said, that in doing so, she dealt as softly as was possible with his mother’s name; but yet she told him everything. “She wrote it herself, in the night.”
“What all; all the names herself?”
“Yes, all.”
“Mrs. Orme, it cannot be so. I will not believe it. To me it is impossible. That you believe it I do not doubt, but I cannot. Let me go to her. I will go to her myself. But even should she say so herself, I will not believe it.”
But she would not let him go upstairs even though he attempted to move her from the door, almost with violence. “No; not till you say that you will forgive her and be gentle with her. And it must not be tonight. We will be up early in the morning, and you can see her before we go;—if you will be gentle to her.”
He still persisted that he did not believe the story, but it became clear to her, by degrees, that the meaning of it all had at last sunk into his mind, and that he did believe it. Over and over again she told him all that she knew, explaining to him what his mother had suffered, making him perceive why she had removed herself out of his hands, and had leant on others for advice. And she told him also that though they still hoped that the jury might acquit her, the property must be abandoned.
“I will leave the house this night if you wish it,” he said.
“When it is all over, when she has been acquitted and shall have gone away, then let it be done. Mr. Mason, you will go with her; will you not?” and then again there was a pause.
“Mrs. Orme, it is impossible that I should say now what I may do. It seems to me as though I could not live through it. I do not believe it. I cannot believe it.”
As soon as she had exacted a promise from him that he would not go to his mother, at any rate without further notice, she herself went upstairs and found Lady Mason lying on her bed. At first Mrs. Orme thought that she was asleep, but no such comfort had come to the poor woman. “Does he know it?” she asked.
Mrs. Orme’s task for that night was by no means yet done. After remaining for a while with Lady Mason she again returned to Lucius,
