Meeson's end.
Also"--and she paused.
"Also what?"
"Also I had a regard for Mr. Eustace Meeson, and I knew that he had lost
his inheritance through a quarrel about myself."
"Ah! now we are coming to it. Then you were tattooed out of regard for
the plaintiff, and not purely in the interests of justice?"
"Yes; I suppose so."
"Well, Mr. Attorney," interposed the Judge, "and what if she was?"
"My object, my Lord, was to show that this young lady was not the purely
impassive medium in this matter that my learned friend, Mr. Short, would
lead the Court to believe. She was acting from motive."
"Most people do," said the Judge drily. "But it does not follow that the
motive was an improper one."
Then the learned gentleman continued his cross-examination, directing all
the ingenuity of his practised mind to trying to prove by Augusta's
admissions, first, that the testator was acting under the undue
influence of herself; and secondly, that when the will was executed he
was _non compos mentis_. To this end he dwelt at great length on every
detail of the events between the tattooing of the will and the death of
the testator on the following day, making as much as was possible out of
the fact that he died in a fit of mania.
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