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creditor should be nonsuited. Mr Norton then vehemently addressed me—the Judge—the reporters for the press:— he said I had told the grossest falsehoods (I having been examined on oath): that he only regretted he had no opportunity at present—that he hoped at some future opportunity, to "give the contradiction that from his heart and soul he could give." He moved still nearer to me; clenched his hand, and spoke in a threatening manner; but the groaning, and utter confusion in Court, made it difficult, even for me, to gather exactly what his threats were, except that they had reference to the hope of some fresh occasion for debate. The Judge ordered the Court to be cleared, and the next cause called on: and so ended this disgraceful scene.
In Mr Norton's memorable letter to the "Times" (which I shall presently give), he sneers at the evidence of my distress and agitation that day, as a piece of "acting." Having himself experienced no touch of pity, tenderness, or honourable sense of degradation,—the reverse was a mystery he could not solve. It could only be acting. What was there to feel any distress about? What?
In the sudden echo of the shame-struck and grieving days of the trial, long ago (when at least life lay before me); and in the consciousness that I had, as I have said, no second youth to wear away in a sort of struggling hope; but that all was now over for ever. In the memory of the frank friend, whose attempt to aid me was made the vile pretence of this dispute: who was dead: who could no longer give his word of honour in my defence, nor listen patiently to my complaining, and speak cheerful prophecies of my "living down" slander. In the recollections knitted with the time of his death: the voyage to Lisbon: the lonesome residence there, away from all friends: the refusal of my husband, even when I was returning with a son pronounced dying by the Portuguese physicians, to bear his share in any unusual expense,—to pay his passage home, or
