Mrs. Orme saw all this, and to her it was very terrible. What would be the world to her, if her boy should frown at her, and look black when she caressed him? And she thought that it was the fault of the mother rather than of the son; as indeed was not all that wretchedness the mother's fault? But then again, there was the one great difficulty. How could any step be taken in the right direction till the whole truth had been confessed to him?
The two women were sitting together in that up stairs room; and the day of the trial was now not a full week distant from them, when Mrs. Orme again tried to persuade the mother to intrust her son with the burden of all her misery. On the preceding day Mr. Solomon Aram had been down at Orley Farm, and had been with Lady Mason for an hour.
"He knows the truth!" Lady Mason had said to her friend. "I am sure of that."
"But did he ask you?"
"Oh, no, he did not ask me that. He asked of little things that happened at the time; but from his manner I am sure he knows it all. He says—that I shall escape."
"Did he say escape?"
"No; not that word, but it was the same thing. He spoke to Lucius, for I saw them on the lawn together."
"You do not know what he said to him?"
"No; for Lucius would not speak to me, and I could not ask him." And then they both were silent, for Mrs. Orme was thinking how she could bring about that matter that was so near her heart. Lady Mason was seated in a large old-fashioned arm-chair, in which she now passed nearly all her time. The table was by her side, but she rarely turned herself to it. She sat leaning with her elbow on her arm, supporting her face with her hand; and opposite to her, so close that she might look into her face and watch every movement of her eyes, sat Mrs. Orme,—intent upon that one thing, that the woman before her should be brought to repent the evil she had done.
"And you have not spoken to Lucius?"