Page:Orley Farm (Serial Volume 12).pdf/38

56 'I am so sorry!'

'There's your bed to make, my dear fellow, and your gruel to warm. You know ShakspeareShakespeare [sic] pretty well by heart I believe, and he puts that matter,—as he did every other matter,—in the best and truest point of view. Lady Macbeth didn't say she had no labour in receiving the king. "The labour we delight in physics pain," she said. Those were her words, and now they are mine.'

'With a more honest purpose behind,' said Felix.

'Well, yes; I've no murder in my thoughts at present. So that is all settled, and Lady Staveley will be delighted to see you down stairs to-morrow.'

'I shall be only too happy,' Felix answered, thinking within his own mind that he must settle it all in the course of the day with Augustus.

'And now perhaps you will be strong enough to say a few words about business.'

'Certainly,' said Graham.

'You have heard of this Orley Farm case, in which our neighbour Lady Mason is concerned.'

'Oh yes; we were all talking of it at your table;—I think it was the night, or a night or two, before my accident.'

'Very well; then you know all about it. At least as much as the public knows generally. It has now been decided on the part of Joseph Mason,—the husband's eldest son, who is endeavouring to get the property—that she shall be indicted for perjury.'

'For perjury!'

'Yes; and in doing that, regarding the matter from his point of view, they are not deficient in judgment.'

'But how could she have been guilty of perjury?'

'In swearing that she had been present when her husband and the three witnesses executed the deed. If they have any ground to stand on—and I believe they have none whatever, but if they have, they would much more easily get a verdict against her on that point than on a charge of forgery. Supposing it to be the fact that her husband never executed such a deed, it would be manifest that she must have sworn falsely in swearing that she saw him do so.'

'Why, yes; one would say so.'

'But that would afford by no means conclusive evidence that she had forged the surreptitious deed herself.'

'It would be strong presumptive evidence that she was cognizant of the forgery.'

'Perhaps so,—but uncorroborated would hardly bring a verdict after such a lapse of years. And then moreover a prosecution for forgery, if unsuccessful, would produce more painful feeling. Whether successful or unsuccessful it would do so. Bail could not