"But do tell me something about your case, Mr. Seaham. Is it not a very interesting story? a poor young woman accused of forgery?"
"Yes," Seaham replied, glancing at his sister; "at least an attempt to exchange bank-notes, which on discovery were found to be forged. It is, indeed, an interesting case; and having full internal evidence that she is innocent, I am doubly concerned in her acquittal. That fact at least is in my favour, for I am afraid I shall be never able to plead con amore under contrary circumstances. The fact is, this poor woman has been for years toiling hard to amass a sufficient sum to carry her to America to her betrothed husband. When still far from the desired point, sickness and other causes having often interrupted her exertions and retarded her success, she finds her lover, impatient at the delay, beginning to entertain injurious ideas of her constancy and truth. In this distressing emergency, it happened (this is her own statement of the case) that some friend came forward, and made up in those same forged notes the requisite amount; that she received them in perfect ignorance of their real character; but refusing absolutely to give up the name of the guilty donor, she was imprisoned, and now stands arraigned for at least connivance in the delinquency."
"Poor creature!" murmured Mary, "is this then the end of all her deferred hope—and wearing, wasting anxiety of mind and body! Oh! Arthur, in such a cause you must surely be successful; how much you will have to say to soften the hearts of her judges, and lead them to look upon the case with lenity and pity!"
"Really, Mary!" exclaimed her brother, smiling with affectionate interest at the sudden energy with which the subject of discussion had animated his sister; the thrilling pathos of her tone—the brilliancy which lighted up her languid eye—the earnest spirit shining with almost sublimity from her anxious countenance, all which he had but a moment ago observed as affording so sad a contrast to the beaming brightness of her fair companion; "I really believe you would do more for my client in the way of eloquence than I should, if by eloquence the cause is to be gained. Do you not think so, Miss Elliott?"
"Miss Elliott has not yet tested your powers in that way," Mary rejoined with a smile, whilst Carrie only laughed and blushed.
"As for my eloquence," she added with a sigh, "it could only spring from the sympathetic feeling which one woman must have for the sufferings and the trials of another; at least"—in a low tone she added, "she must be very young or very happy," glancing at Miss Elliott, "if she be found wanting in that most powerful of inspirations."
"Poor woman!" interposed Miss Elliott, who perhaps began to fear she might be considered too uninspired in the eyes of the young barrister, "she seems deemed throughout to suspicion. How dreadful to be suspected wrongfully! But, as for that lover, I am sure he cannot deserve all the trouble she has suffered on his account. I dare say, the faithlessness was all on his side, for no person could suspect or doubt any one they really loved. Do you not think so, Miss Seaham?" turning away her face from Arthur to look at his sister with a pretty blush.
An expression of intense pain shot across Mary's countenance.
"I thought so once," was the almost gasping utterance which trembled on her lips; but she paused, merely saying in a low tone, her eyes bent mournfully on the ground, "at any rate, the one who doubts and suspects is the greatest sufferer of the two. Yet there are circumstances, I hope, in which, without faithlessness, our perfect trust and confidence in another may—must indeed be shaken."
"Of course; otherwise the virtue becomes indeed a very weakness," rejoined Arthur with some moody significance of tone and manner.