As Lady Mason’s approaching prosecution becomes a serious threat Sir Peregrine Orme’s long sympathy for her turns into love and he proposes marriage, an offer she accepts despite the uneasiness of Lucius, young Peregrine, and Mr. Furnival, but Lady Mason eventually realizes that she cannot become the wife of a man who believes completely in her innocence while concealing the truth from him and therefore confesses to Sir Peregrine that she did forge the codicil and that the accusations against her are true, bringing their proposed marriage to an end while Sir Peregrine and Mrs. Orme, devastated by the revelation, nevertheless resolve not to abandon her and transform the central conflict from a simple legal question of guilt into a deeper moral struggle over friendship, loyalty, forgiveness, and the consequences of a crime committed for a son.
