did, at the rector's instance, manage to see Sir William, and to ask the question, "Could nothing be done?" "Nothing more than we propose to do." "Then the case is over," said Mr. Hardy. "I am assured that no one will stir on behalf of that Italian lady." "If any one did stir it would only be loss of time and money. My dear Hardy, I understand as well as any one what people are saying, and I know what must be the feeling of many of the Lovels. But I can only do my duty by my client to the best of my judgment. In the first place, you must remember that he has himself acknowledged the Countess." "By our advice," said Mr. Hardy. "You mean by mine. Exactly so;--but with such conviction on his own part that he positively refuses to be a party to any suit which shall be based on the assumption that she is not Countess Lovel. Let an advocate be ever so obdurate, he can hardly carry on a case in opposition to his client's instructions. We are acting for Lord Lovel, and not for the Lovel family. And I feel assured of this, that were we to attempt to set up the plea that that other woman was alive when the marriage took place in Cumberland, you, yourself, would be ashamed of the evidence which it would become your duty to endeavour to foist upon the jury. We should certainly be beaten, and, in the ultimate settlement of the property, we should have to do with enemies instead of friends. The man was tried for bigamy and acquitted. Would any jury get over that unless you had evidence to offer to them that was plain as a pikestaff, and absolutely incontrovertible?" "Do you still think the girl will marry the Earl?" "No; I do not. She seems to have a will of her own, and that will is bent the other way. But I do think that a settlement may be made of the property which shall be very much in the Earl's favour." When on the following morning the Solicitor-General made his second speech, which did not occupy above a quarter of an hour, it became manifest that he did not intend to alter his course of proceeding, and while the judges were absent it was said by everybody in the court that the Countess and Lady Anna had gained their suit. "I consider it to be a most disgraceful course of proceeding on the part of Sir William Patterson," said the rector to a middle-aged legal functionary, who was managing clerk to Norton and Flick. "We all think, sir, that there was more fight in it," said the legal functionary.