'Seven
years,' were Jane's first words, and 'My dear Maurice,' Lady
Merrifield's, 'Oh! I wish I could have spared you this,' and then among
greetings came again, 'Seven years,' from the brother and cousin who
had seen the traveller before.
'I'm glad you were not there, Maurice,' said Lady Merrifield. 'It was
dreadful.'
'I never saw a more insolent fellow!' said Lord Rotherwood.
'That Yokes, you mean,' said Miss Mohun. 'I declare I think he is
worse than Flinders!'
'That's like you women, Jenny,' returned the colonel; 'you can't
understand that a man's business is to get off his client!'
'When he gave him up as an honest man altogether!' cried Lady
Merrifield.
'And cast such imputations!' exclaimed Aunt Jane. 'I saw what the
wretch was driving at all the time of the cross-examination; and if I'd
been the judge, would not I have stopped him?'
'There you go. Lily and Jenny!' said the colonel, 'and Rotherwood just
as bad! Why, Maurice would have had to take just the same line if he
had been for the defence.'
'He would not have done it in such a blackguard fashion though,' said
Lord Rotherwood.
'I saw what his defence would be,' said Mr. Mohun, briefly.
'There!' said Colonel Mohun, with a boyish pleasure in confuting his
sisters; but they were not subdued.
'Now Maurice,' cried Jane, 'when that man was known to be utterly
dishonourable and good for nothing, was it fair--was it not contrary to
all common sense--to try to cast the imputation between those two poor
girls? So the judge and jury felt it, I am happy to say! but I call it
abominable to have thrown out the mere suggestion--'
'Nay now, Jane,' said the colonel, 'if the man was to be defended at
all, how else was it to be done?'
'I wouldn't have had him defended at all! but, unfortunately, that's
his right as an Englishman.
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