Plaintiff joined issue, and the trial was set down for the next
assizes.
Sir Charles was irritated, but nothing more. Lady Bassett, with a
woman's natural shrinking from publicity, felt it more deeply. She
would have given thousands of her own money to keep the matter out of
court. But her very terror of Richard Bassett restrained her. She was
always thinking about him, and had convinced herself he was the ablest
villain in the wide world; and she thought to herself, "If, with his
small means, he annoys Charles so, what would he do if I were to enrich
him? He would crush us."
As the trial drew near she began to hover about Sir Charles in his
study, like an anxious hen. The maternal yearnings were awakened in her
by marriage, and she had no child; so her Charles in trouble was
husband and child.
Sometimes she would come in and just kiss his forehead, and run out
again, casting back a celestial look of love at the door, and, though
it was her husband she had kissed, she blushed divinely. At last one
day she crept in and said, very timidly, "Charles dear, the anonymous
letter--is not that an excuse for libeling him--as they call telling
the truth?"
"Why, of course it is. Have you got it?"
"Dearest, the brave lady took it away."
"The brave lady! Who is that?"
"Why, the lady that came with Mr.
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