“Ah! cruel man! cruel man!” moaned the broken father. “God judge you for this—as now I must judge my unhappy son. Mr. Bassett, it matters little to you what magistrate commits you, and I must keep my oath. I am—going—to set you an—example, by signing a warrant—”
“No, no, no!” cried a woman's voice, and Mary Meyrick rushed into the room.
Every person there thought he knew Mary Meyrick; yet she was like a stranger to them now. There was that in her heart at that awful moment which transfigured a handsome but vulgar woman into a superior being. Her cheek was pale, her black eyes large, and her mellow voice had a magic power. “You don't know what you are doing!” she cried. “Go no farther, or you will all curse the hand that harmed a hair of his head; you, most of all, Richard Bassett.”
Sir Charles, in any other case, would have sent her out of the room; but, in his misery, he caught at the straw.
“Speak out, woman,” he said, “and save the wretched boy, if you can. I see no way.”
“There are things it is not fit to speak before all the world. Bid those men go, and I'll open your eyes that stay.”
Then Richard Bassett foresaw another triumph, so he told the constable and his man they had better retire for a few minutes, “while,” said he, with a sneer, “these wonderful revelations are being made.”
When they were gone, Mary turned to Richard Bassett, and said “Why do you want him sent to prison?—to spite Sir Charles here, to stab his heart through his son.”
Sir Charles groaned aloud.
The woman heard, and thought of many things. She flung herself on her knees, and seized his hand. “Don't you cry, my dear old master; mine is the only heart shall bleed. HE IS NOT YOUR SON.”