If the jury had but seen her pretty, pathetic face, and
heard from her own sweet lips all she had endured, they would have
come to a very different verdict.
"But she would not come forward on her own behalf. She would not
defend the action; she did not want to win it, but waited till it was
all over, hiding herself away in a far-off corner of the Apennines,
where I was to join her with the child, little Ralph.
"There had been no question of that; the possibility of her losing it
had never been raised, or she would have nerved herself to fight
sooner than give up what she valued more than her very life.
"It fell upon me with crushing effect, although towards the end of the
trial I had had my forebodings. Lord Blackadder was to have the
custody of his heir, and my dear sweet Henriette was to be robbed for
ever of her chiefest joy and treasure. The infant child was to be
abandoned to strangers, paid by its unnatural and unfeeling father.
"I had braced myself to listen to all that came out in court, a whole
tissue of lies told by perjured wretches whose evidence was accepted
as gospel--one of them was the same Falfani whom you know, and who had
acted the loathsome part of spy on several occasions.
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