“But tell me, you, why was I acquitted, while all the other prisoners, who had been arraigned before me, were convicted? Did my father’s, my friends’, and my——Lord Montressor’s rank and wealth, and power, thrown into the scales of justice, tilt the balance in my favor? Had I only this advantage over other wretches?” she asked, fixing her dark eyes, querulous with suffering, upon the distressed face of the old clergyman. “No, no, my child! This was not so. This would not have been so, of course. English law is no respecter of persons, and English courts are as incorruptible by wealth as they are undismayed by power. You owe your acquittal solely to your guiltlessness.” “What!” she cried, fixing her wild, dilated eyes upon the old man’s face, “was it not _true_, then?” “Was not _what_ true, my child?” “That which the king’s counsel said of me?” “Assuredly not! The king’s counsel himself did not believe the words that he spoke—his speech was a mere official form. Compose yourself, my child.” “Oh, I will do so. I am composed; but hist!” she said, sinking her voice to a whisper: “did they make me out to be my lord’s wife?” “Assuredly, my child, and you are in strict law the wife of Lord Montressor; though the Judge of the Assizes, as well as he knew that fact, had no authority to pronounce upon it.” “Oh God! my God!” she cried, wringing her hands. “Be calm, my child; do not let that omission distress you, for though the Judge had no authority to give judgment upon an affair that belonged exclusively to the ecclesiastic courts, yet neither was his judgment needed. We all know now, as we knew before, that you are really and truly the wife of Lord Montressor. Have we not, ever since your marriage, addressed you only by his name?” “Lord! my Lord!” she cried, still twisting and wringing her white fingers. “Why, Estelle, my child, what ails you? Have you borne up through all the trial to sink at last in the hour of your triumph?” “Triumph, was it? Oh! Lord in heaven! Lord of pity!” “Estelle! Estelle!” “You said that I was truly the wife of Lord Montressor?” “Undoubtedly, my child!” “Then it was the wife of Lord Montressor who was this day tried for——Saints in heaven! I cannot name the charge!” She groaned, with the sweat of agony bursting from her icy brow. “Estelle,” said Lord Montressor, now seating himself by her side and taking her hand—“you are ill—nervous. This is nothing new, nothing that we have not known for a month past, why then should it distress you?” “Ah, my lord! but it is! for I did not mind what they out of pity called me! I called my lost self Estelle L’Orient! I thought it was Estelle L’Orient who was to be tried upon that degrading charge! And had it been Estelle L’Orient, it had not signified! But that the wife of the Viscount Montressor should suffer this degradation—oh! angels in heaven! it is terrible!—it is terrible!” “Estelle, you rave! pray try, for our sakes, to control yourself, love!”