Page:English laws for women in the nineteenth century.djvu/97

85 generation than the children of light;" and those who had to defend fraud, felt that so it would be but ill-defended; and that the clear light would fall on a gross breach of faith. Mr Norton has had more than half a century's experience of this world; and he knew better how to evade its judgment. He knew what the introduction and revival of the old scandals about Lord Melbourne^ would be worth in such a case. He knew how instantly attention would be called off the real question of our contract, to animated disputes whether the verdict given in that memorable trial had or had not been a just one; whether I was or was not a wanton; whether I had or had not done well in accepting any legacy from the defendant in that action. He knew what clouds of dust would rise with that old story, to confuse the eyes that might otherwise see clearly; and he—whose own income consisted of —


 * 1) A place of a thousand a year given by :—
 * 2) An Estate in Yorkshire left him by the woman whose seizure of my children caused our last quarrel:—
 * 3) The Trust-fund from which he had borrowed, by means of my signature to the very contract disputed in Court:—
 * 4) The portion bequeathed me by my Father:—
 * 5) The Recordership of Guildford; a salary for sitting in judgment on other men:—(!)

came forward in Court, to affect a scrupulous delicacy,—that the wife on whom he had closed the door of her home "with the chain across:"—whom he had prosecuted for divorce and then wooed to return to him:—whom he himself had endeavoured to make the wife of Lord Melbourne, by criminating evidence totally unfit for belief;—should accept assistance from that dead friend's family, to half the amount he himself still drew, from the place Lord Melbourne had given him!

Greater hypocrisy than the pretence, surely never existed: and a greater falsehood than that by which the pretence was supported, certainly never was told; for Mr Norton coolly