"I hope you will forgive me, sir. I could not help giving my evidence." "Forgive you!" echoed Mr. Prattleton; "I wish nobody wanted forgiveness worse than you do. You have acted nobly throughout. I have recommended Mr. George to get out of the town for a while; not to remain in it in idleness and trouble my table any longer. He can join his friend Rolls on the continent if he likes: I understand he is most likely off thither." The fraud was not brought home to the Carr family. It was indisputably certain that the squire himself had known nothing whatever of it: had never even been aware that the marriage was entered on the register of St. James the Less. Whether his sons Valentine and Benjamin were equally guiltless, was a matter of opinion. Valentine solemnly protested that nothing had ever been told to him; but he did acknowledge that Richards came to him one evening, and said he thought the cause was likely to be imperilled by "certain proceedings" that the other side were taking. He, Valentine Carr, authorized him to do what he could to counteract these proceedings (only intending him to act in a fair manner), and gave him carte blanche in a moderate way for the money that might be required. He acknowledged to no more: and perhaps he had no more to acknowledge: neither did he say _how much_ he had paid to Richards. Benjamin treated the whole matter with contempt. The most indignant of all were Mynn and Mynn. Really respectable practitioners, it was in truth a very disagreeable thing to have been forced upon them; and could they have got at their ex-clerk, they would willingly have transported him. And Mr. Fauntleroy, in the flush of his great victory, in the plenitude of his gratitude to the boy whose singular evidence had caused him to win the battle, went down that same day to Peter Arkell's and forgave him the miserable debt that had so long hampered him. For once in his life, the lawyer showed himself generous. People used to say that such was his nature before the world hardened him. So, taking one thing with another, it was a satisfactory termination to the renowned cause, Carr versus Carr. It was a large state dinner at the deanery. But the chief thing that Henry Arkell saw at it was, that Mr. St. John sat by Georgina Beauclerc. The judges--who did not appear in their wigs and fiery gowns, to the relief of private country individuals of wide imaginations, that could not usually separate them--were pleasant men, and their faces did not look so yellow by candle-light. They talked to Henry a great deal, and he had to rehearse over, for the general benefit, all the scene of that past night in St. James's Church. Mrs. Beauclerc, usually so indifferent, was aroused to especial interest, and would not quit the theme; neither would Lady Anne St. John, now visiting at the Palmery, and who was present with Mrs. St. John.