"Yes; Mr. Furnival! It is he that has done it all. In my heart I wish that you had never known Mr. Furnival;—never known him as a lawyer that is," he added, thinking of his own strong love for the lawyer's daughter.
"Do not upbraid me now, Lucius. Wait till it is all over."
"Upbraid you! No. I have come to you now that we may be friends. As things have gone so far, this plan of defence must of course be carried on. I will say no more about that. But, mother, I will go into the court with you to-morrow. That support I can at any rate give you, and they shall see that there is no quarrel between us."
But Lady Mason did not desire this. She would have wished that he might have been miles away from the court had that been possible. "Mrs. Orme is to be with me," she said.
Then again there came a black frown upon his brow,—a frown such as there had often been there of late. "And will Mrs. Orme's presence make the attendance of your own son improper?"
"Oh, no; of course not. I did not mean that, Lucius."
"Do you not like to have me near you?" he asked; and as he spoke he rose up, and took her hand as he stood before her.
She gazed for a moment into his face while the tears streamed down from her eyes, and then rising from her chair, she threw herself on to his bosom and clasped him in her arms. "My boy! my boy!" she said. "Oh, if you could be near me, and away from this—away from this!"
She had not intended thus to give way, but the temptation had been too strong for her. When she had seen Mrs. Orme and Peregrine together,—when she had heard Peregrine's mother, with words expressed in a joyful tone, affect to complain of the inroads which her son made upon her, she had envied her that joy. "Oh, if it could be so with me also!" she always thought; and the words too had more than once been spoken. Now at last, in this last moment, as it might be, of her life at home, he had come to her with kindly voice, and she could not repress her yearning.
"Lucius," she said; "dearest Lucius! my own boy!" And then the tears from her eyes streamed hot on to his bosom.