Page:English laws for women in the nineteenth century.djvu/98

86 asserted that he never would have made the allowance in the contract, if I had not "given him the most solemn assurance that I would receive nothing from Lord Melbourne."

I made a brief emphatic answer, to this deliberate misrepresentation. I said:—

"I stand here on my ,—and I say that that is false." For a moment, I was bitterly tempted to add these further words: "Will Mr Norton also consent to be ?" But I refrained. I appealed to Mr Leman's testimony, whose evidence was taken on oath as a witness in the case—and who accordingly deposed that no such stipulation ever was made; and that he himself had drawn up the contract with all its conditions, at Mr Norton's own request. Mr Leman added—with much emphasis and feeling—that though, legally, he considered the agreement might not stand, he certainly expected it would have bound Mr Norton "as a man of honour."

From the moment the questioning began about Lord Melbourne, I lost all self-possession. Not because I was ashamed of having accepted his bequest; if I had thought there was shame in it, I should not have taken it:—but because I then saw all the cruel baseness of Mr Norton's intention. All flashed upon me at once. I felt that I no longer stood in that Court to struggle for an income—but to struggle against infamy. I knew by sudden instinct, that the husband who had so often, to me and to others, asserted that the trial was the work of "Advisers" was now about to pretend he believed the charge brought against Lord Melbourne in 1836. The wild exasperation came over me, which seemed so inexplicable to those who did not know our real story. He, who had falsely accused me long ago,—he who had taken my young children, and let one of them die without even sending for me, till too late,—he who had embittered and clouded my whole existence,—who was now in my presence only to cheat me (as I had foretold he would do),—he was once more going to brand me before the world! I felt giddy; the faces of the people grew indis-