“You may trust me, for both our sakes,” said Forester, smiling. “By the by, you mentioned a letter from a law-agent of the Darcys, Mr. Bicknell; was it expressive of any hope of a favorable termination to the suit, or did he opine that the case was a bad one?”
“If I remember aright, a very bad one,—bad, from the deficiency of evidence; worse, from the want of funds to carry it on. Of course I only speak from memory; and the epistle was so cramp, so complex, and with such a profusion of detail intermixed, that I could make little out of it, and retain even less. I must say that as it was written without my cousin's knowledge or consent, I paid no attention to it. It was, so to say, quite unauthorized.”
“Indeed!” exclaimed Forester, in an accent whose scorn was mistaken by the hearer, as he resumed.
“Just so; a mere lawyer's ruse, to carry on a suit. He proposed, I own, a kind of security for any advance I should make, in the person of Miss Daly, whose property, amounting to some three or four thousand pounds, was to be given as security! There always is some person of this kind on these occasions—some tame elephant—to attract the rest; but I paid no attention to it. The only thing, indeed, I could learn of the lady was, that she had a fire-eating brother who paid bond debts with a pistol, and small ones with a horsewhip.”
“I know Mr. Daly and his sister too. He is a most honorable and high-minded gentleman; of her I only needed to hear the trait your Lordship has just mentioned, to say that she is worthy to be his sister in every respect.”
“I was not aware that they were acquaintances of yours.”
“Friends, my Lord, would better express the relationship between us,—friends, firm and true, I sincerely believe them. Pray, if not indiscreet, may I ask the date of this letter?”
“Some day of June last, I think. The case was to come on for trial next November in Westport, and it was for funds to carry on the suit, it would seem, they were pressed.”
“You did n't hear a second time?”
“No, I 've told you that I never answered this letter. I was quite willing, I am so at this hour, to be of any service to my dear cousin, Lady Eleanor Darcy, and to aid her to the fullest extent; but to prosecute a hopeless lawsuit, to throw away some thousands in an interminable Equity investigation,—to measure purses, too, against one of the richest men in Ireland, as I hear their antagonist is,—this, I could never think of.”