itation to eat was
pleasant to him, but he was forced to acknowledge to himself that it
interfered with business.

Nor did Mr. Mason feel himself ready to go on with the conversation
in the manner in which it had been hitherto conducted. His mind was
full of Orley Farm and his wrongs, and he could bring himself to
think of nothing else; but he could no longer talk about it to the
attorney sitting there in his study. "Will you take a turn about the
place while the lunch is getting ready?" he said. So they took their
hats and went out into the garden.

"It is dreadful to think of," said Mr. Mason, after they had twice
walked in silence the length of a broad gravel terrace.

"What; about her ladyship?" said the attorney.

"Quite dreadful!" and Mr. Mason shuddered. "I don't think I ever
heard of anything so shocking in my life. For twenty years, Mr.
Dockwrath, think of that. Twenty years!" and his face as he spoke
became almost black with horror.

"It is very shocking," said Mr. Dockwrath; "very shocking. What on
earth will be her fate if it be proved against her? She has brought
it on herself; that is all that one can say of her."

"D---- her! d---- her!" exclaimed the other, gnashing his teeth
with concentrated wrath. "No punishment will be bad enough for her.
Hanging would not be bad enough."

"They can't hang her, Mr. Mason," said Mr. Dockwrath, almost
frightened by the violence of his companion.

"No; they have altered the laws, giving every encouragement to
forgers, villains, and perjurers. But they can give her penal
servitude for life. They must do it."

"She is not convicted yet, you know."

"D---- her!" repeated the owner of Groby Park again, as he thought of
his twenty years of loss. Eight hundred a year for twenty years had
been taken away from him; and he had been worsted before the world
after a hard fight. "D---- her!" he continued to growl between his
teeth. Mr. Dockwrath when he had first heard his companion say how
horrid and dreadful the affair was, had thought that Mr. Mason was
alluding to the condition in which the lady had placed herself by her
assumed guilt. But it was of his own condition that he was speaking.
The idea which shocked him was the thought of the treatment which he
himself had undergone. The dreadful thing at which he shuddered was
his own ill usage. As for her;--pity for her! Did a man ever pity a
rat that had eaten into his choicest dainties?

"The lunch is on the table