"Your mother will be there, but her presence will be unknown to them. Yet she vows that, if Considine does not deny before all assembled the wickedness of the slanders he has put about, she will come forward and confront him and dare him to utter them to her face.
"'Twill be a terrible ordeal for her," my husband said. "Heaven grant she may be able to endure it."
"She will endure it; she will so string herself up that none regarding her will be able to imagine her a weak woman who sometimes cannot raise herself even from her bed. Yet, since she has dwelt under my care----"
"For which I say again God bless you--for that and all the other luxuries and comforts you have surrounded her with."
"'Tis but little," replied the Marquis. "And she is desolate and the mother of my heir. 'Tis nothing. But, as I say, since she hath been with me I have seen some most marvellous moments of recovery with her, moments when she would suddenly exclaim that she was once more well and strong. And, to show me that she was so, she would lift some great weight or walk up and down her chamber a dozen times, yet ever afterwards there came directly a relapse when she would again sink into her chair helpless as a babe once more."
"Ay," said my husband thoughtfully, "so have I seen her too. Nor do I doubt that if she stands face to face with that craven hound, she will lack no strength to cow him."
In a little while you shall see that that strength was not lacking, you shall see how it was exerted against the miserable wretch who had blighted her life. But the place to tell it is not here.
And now the Marquis bade us prepare to accompany him to that great mansion of his in Lincoln's Inn Fields, of which my dear lord had told me; and, ere long, Gerald's servant and Christian Lamb between them had packed up our effects, we going in the gorgeous emblazoned coach and they following in a hackney. As we went I observed how great a man this noble kinsman of ours was, for many, both gentle and simple, raised their hats to the carriage as it passed along, and in the great square, which they call the Fields, there was quite a concourse to witness our arrival; the poor people shouting for the noble Marquis and cheering the Government, while his running footmen threw, by his orders, some silver pieces amongst them.
Oh, 'twas indeed a joyful day!--joyful in many ways--for, besides showing to us that which truly I had never had any doubts of, namely, that the Marquis of Amesbury was all for Gerald and determined, if he could, to right him, it brought together that poor mother and son who had so often and so long been parted. Nor could I restrain my tears, nor fail to weep for joy, as I saw them folded once more in each other's arms, and heard her whisper her love and fondness for him and murmur that, at last, they would never more be parted in this world.
"Never more be parted in this world." That was what she said. "Never more to be parted in this world." Verily she spake as a prophet, or as one who could divine the future.