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Quisante, a novel by Anthony Hope

Chapter 15. A Strange Idea

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_ CHAPTER XV. A STRANGE IDEA

The next few weeks were a time of restless activity with Alexander Quisante. Again he was like an electric current, not travelling now from constituency to constituency, but between Westminster and his cousin Mandeville's offices in the City. In both places he was very busy. His leader had declared for a waiting policy, and an interval in which the demoralisation of defeat should pass away; the party must feel its feet again, the great man said. Constantine Blair was full of precedents for the course, quoting Lord Melbourne, Sir Robert Peel, Sir James Graham, and all the gods of the Parliamentarian. Brusquely and almost rudely Quisante brushed him, his gods, and his leader on one side, and raised the standard of fierce and immediate battle. The majority was composite; his quick eye saw the spot where a wedge might be inserted between the two component parts and driven home till the gap yawned wide and scission threatened. The fighting men needed only to be shown where to fight; they followed enthusiastically the man who led them to the field. Leaders shook grey heads, and leader-writers disclaimed a responsibility which _prima facie_ had never rested on them; Quisante was told that he would wreck the party for a quarter of a century to come. It would perhaps have been possible to meet Constantine Blair's precedents with other precedents, to quote newer gods against his established deities. That was not "Sandro's way"; here again he was content to be an ancestor, the originator of his methods, and the sufficient authority for them.

He was justified. The spirit of his fighting men ran high, and his fighting men's wives grew gracious to him. The majority, if they scowled at him (as was only to be hoped), began to scowl furtively at one another also and to say that certain questions, on which they were by no means of one mind, could not permanently be shirked and kept in the background. Some of them asked what their constituents had sent them to Westminster for, a question always indicative of perturbation in the parliamentary mind; in quiet times it is not raised. The Government papers took to observing that they did not desire to hurry or embarrass the Government, but that time was running on and it would be no true friendship to advise it to ignore the feeling which existed among an important, if numerically small, section of its followers. Altogether at the opening of the session the majority was much less happy, the minority in far finer feather, than anybody had expected. Only officialdom or ignorance could refuse the main credit to Alexander Quisante.

"I declare," said Lady Castlefort--and her opinion was not one to neglect--"May Gaston was right to take the man after all. He'll be Prime Minister." And she settled her _pince-nez_ and looked round for contradiction. She loved argument but had made the mistake of growing too important to be differed from. None the less on this occasion a sweet little voice spoke up in the circle.

"I wouldn't marry him if he were fifty times Prime Minister," said Lady Richard Benyon. "He's odious."

"God bless me!" murmured the Countess, genuinely startled. "Well, you'll see, my dear," she went on, nodding emphatically. "He's the only man among them." Her eye fell on Weston Marchmont. "Oh, yes, I see you're there," she said, "and I'm very glad you should be."

"It's always a pleasure to be here," he smiled urbanely.

"Especially, apparently, when you ought to be at the House," she retorted, glancing at the clock. "However to-day you've heard more truth here than you're likely to there, so I forgive you."

"More truth here? But Quisante's making a speech!"

"Oh, you're very neat," she said with an open impatience. "You can score off a woman at her tea-table; go and score off the other side, Weston, and then you may do it as much as you like to me. As if anybody cared whether Mr. Quisante speaks the truth or not!" He came up to her and held out his hand, smiling good-naturedly. She gave him hers with a laugh, for she liked him much and did not like Quisante at all. "It's your own fault, that's why you're so exasperating," she half-whispered as she bade him good-bye.

Here was one side; on the other the men of the City came to know Quisante too, but, as befitted persons engaged in the serious pursuit of dealing with money, gave more hesitating and guarded opinions; no party spirit led them astray or fired them to desperate ventures. However there was no denying that the Alethea Printing Press sounded a very good thing, and moreover no denying that measures had been skilfully taken to prevent anybody having a share in that good thing without paying handsomely for the privilege. The Syndicate, speaking through Mr. Mandeville its mouthpiece, by no means implored support or canvassed new partners; it was prepared to admit one or two names of weight in return for substantial aid. Mandeville did nothing of himself; he referred to the Board, and the Board's answers came after Alexander Quisante's hansom had flashed back to Westminster. But a few did gain admittance, and these few were much struck by the reports on the Alethea, all of which had been sent back for revision to their respective authors, accompanied by some new and important facts. These latter did not, as it turned out, alter the tenor of the reports, but it had been thought as well to afford an opportunity for reconsideration in the light of them; so Mandeville explained, seeming always just a little nervous over this matter of the reports.

"We had hoped," he said to one gentleman who was rather important and rather hard to satisfy, "to fortify ourselves with Professor Maturin's opinion. But unfortunately he died before he could complete his examination, and nothing on the subject was found among his papers."

"That's a pity. Maturin would have carried great weight."

"We were quite alive to that," Mandeville assured him with a somewhat uneasy smile. His feelings were not unlike those of a quiet steady-going member of Quisante's party in Parliament. "We have no doubt of what his opinion would have been, had he been able to study our additional facts and been spared to complete his report. As it was, he had only discussed the matter informally with one or two of us." And when he was left alone, he murmured softly, "I suppose that's how Alexander meant me to put it." But he rather wished that Alexander had been there to put it himself.

It is perhaps needless to say that Aunt Maria, sturdily fulfilling her destiny in life, was deeply concerned in the fortunes of the Alethea Printing Press. But large as was her stake--and the possibilities of loss at least were for her very large--she was not disturbed; she said that heaven alone knew whether there was anything in the thing, but that she knew that Sandro would make people think there was. Nor did she share in any serious degree the fears which afflicted her nephew's wife; Sandro always had a case, and she did not doubt that he would have a very good one whereby to justify any proceedings he might take in regard to the Alethea. So she lived frugally, hoped magnificently, and came often to Grosvenor Road to pick up what crumbs of information she could. Here she met Lady Castlefort and nodded her rusty bonnet at that great personage with the remark that she was glad people were waking up to what there was in Sandro; it was time, goodness knew. Lady Castlefort was for the moment taken aback.

"Mr. Quisante has had certain--er--difficulties to overcome," she murmured rather vaguely, and was not reassured by a dry chuckle and the heartfelt exclamation, "I should think so!" Altogether it was difficult to make out exactly what Mr. Quisante's aunt thought of him.

Here the old lady met also the Dean of St. Neot's, who called every now and then because he liked May and wished to show that he bore no malice about the Crusade; but the subject was still a sore one, and he was as little prepared to be chuckled at over it as Lady Castlefort had been over her diplomatic indication of the fact that Quisante's blood was not blue nor his manners those of a grand old English gentleman.

"Sandro knew all along that there wasn't much in that, but it was something to begin with," Aunt Maria remarked to the uncomfortable Dean. She herself had dragged in the Crusade, to which she referred so contemptuously.

"Miss Quisante will do anything in the world for my husband," May interposed, "but nothing'll persuade her to say a good word for him."

"As long as that's understood, she does him no harm. We discount all you say, Miss Quisante."

The Dean's affability was thrown away on Aunt Maria.

"I know what I'm talking about," she remarked grimly, "and as far as your Crusade goes, I should think you'd have seen it yourself by now."

The Dean had seen it himself by now, but he did not wish to say so in the presence of Quisante's wife. May's laugh relieved him a little.

"The Dean's very forgiving," she said, "and Alexander's doing well now, anyhow, isn't he?"

The Dean agreed that he was doing well now--for in spite of his disclaimers of partisanship there was a spice of the fighting man in the Dean--and repeated Lady Castlefort's prophecy, reported to him by Lady Richard. The rusty black bonnet nodded approvingly. "I knew that was a sensible woman, in spite of her airs," said Miss Quisante.

Lastly, among those whom Miss Quisante encountered at her nephew's house was Lady Mildmay, and this interview took a rather more serious turn. In after days May used to look back to it as the first faint sign of the new factor which from now began to make itself felt in her life and to become a very pressing presence to her. She did not enjoy the friendship which the Mildmays forced on her, but it was impossible to receive it otherwise than with outward graciousness; the cordiality was so kind, the interest so frank, Sir Winterton's gallantry so chivalrous, his wife's gentleness so appealing. When Lady Mildmay was announced May found time for a hasty whisper to Aunt Maria: "Take care what you say about Alexander before her." Doubts must not be stirred in the Mildmay mind; the Mildmays must be kept in their delusion; to help in this was one of the duties of Quisante's wife.

Lady Mildmay smiled gladly on Aunt Maria.

"I'm so pleased you're here," she said, "because I know you'll second me in what I'm going to venture to say to Lady May. I know I'm taking a liberty, but I can't help it. Meeting people now and then, you do sometimes see what people who are always with them don't. Now don't you, Miss Quisante?"

"And _vice versa_," murmured Aunt Maria; but May's eye rested on her warningly, and she refrained from pointing her observation by any reference to Sandro.

"I'm quite sure your husband is overdoing himself terribly," Lady Mildmay went on. "I saw him the other day walking through the Park, and he looked ghastly. I stopped him and told him so, but he said he'd just been to his doctor, and that there was really nothing the matter with him."

"I didn't know he'd been to the doctor lately. He seemed pretty well for him," said May. Aunt Maria said nothing; her keen little eyes were watching the visitor very closely.

"I've seen a lot of illness," pursued Lady Mildmay in her gentle voice, "and I know. He's working himself to death; he's killing himself." She raised her eyes and looked at May. Kind as the glance was, May felt in it a wonder, almost a reproach. "How comes it that you, his wife, haven't seen it too?" the eyes seemed to say in plaintive surprise. "Are you sure there's nothing wrong with him?" she asked.

"Wrong with him? What do you mean?" The question was Aunt Maria's, asked abruptly, roughly, almost indignantly. Lady Mildmay started. "I--I don't want to alarm you, I'm sure," she murmured, "but I don't like his looks. Do, do persuade him to take a rest."

Both of them were silent now; Lady Mildmay's wonder grew; she did not understand them; she saw them exchange a glance whose expression she could not analyse.

"He wants absolute rest and care, the care you could give him, my dear," she said to May--such a care she meant as her loving heart and hands would give to handsome Sir Winterton. "Go away with him for a few months and take care of him, now do. Keep all worries and--and ambitions and so on away from him."

May's face was grave and strained in a painful attention; but on Miss Quisante's lips there came slowly a bitter little smile. What a picture this good lady drew of Sandro and his loving wife, together, apart from the world, with ambitions and worries set aside! Must the outlines of that picture be followed if--well, if Sandro was to live?

"I hope you're not offended? Seeing him only now and then I notice the change. Winterton and I have both been feeling anxious about it, and we decided that you wouldn't mind if I spoke to you."

"You're too good, too good," said May. "We don't deserve it." Lady Mildmay smiled.

"I know what a strain the election was," said she. "Even Winterton felt it, and Mr. Quisante never seems to rest, does he?" She rose to go, but, as she said good-bye, she spoke one more word, half in a whisper and timidly, "I daresay I'm wrong, but are you sure his heart's quite sound?" And so she left them, excusing herself to the last for what might seem an intrusion, or even a slight on the careful watch that an affectionate wife keeps over her husband's health.

May walked to the hearthrug and stood there; Aunt Maria, sitting very still, glanced up with a frightened gaze, but her speech came bitter with aggressive scorn.

"What does the silly creature mean?" she asked. "There's nothing the matter with Sandro, is there?"

"I don't know that there is," May answered slowly.

"The woman talks as if he was going to die." Still the tone was contemptuous, still the look frightened. "Such nonsense!"

"I hope it is. He's not strong though, is he?"

Miss Quisante had often said the same, but now she received the remark irritably. "Strong! He's not a buffalo like some men, like Jimmy Benyon or, I suppose, that poor creature's husband she's always talking about. But there's nothing the matter with him, there's no reason he shouldn't--no reason he should fall ill at all."

"She thinks he ought to rest, perhaps give up altogether."

"Altogether? Nonsense!" The tone was sharp.

"Well, then, for a long while."

"And go away, and let you coddle him?"

"Yes, and let me coddle him." May looked down on Aunt Maria, and for the first time smiled faintly.

"The woman's out of her senses," declared Aunt Maria testily. "Don't you think so? Don't you think so?"

"I don't know," was all May could say in answer either to the irritation of the voice or to the fear of the eyes. The old lady's hands were trembling as she raised them and gave a pull to the bow of her bonnet-strings.

"He'll see me out anyhow, I'll be bound," she said obstinately. She was fighting against the bare idea of being left with a remnant of life to live and no Sandro to fill it for her; what a miserable fag-end of empty waiting that would be! She glanced sharply at his wife; she did not know what his wife was thinking of.

"I'll ask him," said May, "and I must insist on knowing." She paused and added, "I ought to have noticed and I ought to have asked before. But somehow----" The sentence went unfinished, and Aunt Maria's sharp unsatisfied eyes drew no further answer. May kissed her when they parted; whatever this idea might mean to her, whatever the strange tumult it might raise in her, she read well enough the story of the old lady's rough tones, shaking hands and frightened eyes. To the old woman Sandro was the sum of life. She might sneer, she might scorn, she might rail, she might and would suffer at his hands. But he was the one thing, the sole support, she had to cling to; he kept her alive. Yet the last words that Miss Quisante said were, "I expect Sandro wanted to wheedle something out of that woman, and has been playing one of his tricks to get a bit of sympathy." Then she climbed slowly and totteringly down the stairs.

Left alone, May Quisante sat in apparent idleness, letting her thoughts play with a freedom which some people consider in itself blameworthy, though certainly no action and often no desire accompany the picture which the mind draws. She said to herself, "Supposing this is true, or that more than this is true, supposing his heart is unsound, what does it mean to me?" What it excluded was easier to realise than what it meant. Unless Quisante were to have not existence only, but also health, such health at least as enables a man to do work although not, may be, to glory in the doing of it, unless there were to the engine wheels sound enough to answer to the spur of the steam that his brain's furnace made, nothing could come about of what Lady Castlefort's Mightiness prophesied, nothing of what friends and enemies had begun to look for, nothing of what May herself had grown to regard as his future and hers, as the basis, the condition, the circumstances, of her life and of his. An old thought of her own came to her, back from the dim region of ante-marriage days, the idea to which the Henstead doctor had given a terse, if metaphorical, expression. Quisante was their race-horse, their money was on him, they wanted a win for the stable. If this or more than this were true, then there would be no win for the stable; the horse was a grand horse, but he wouldn't stand training. What was left then? An invalid and the wife of an invalid, coddlings, cossetings, devotion, ambition far away, life kept in him by loving heart and loving hands. Hers must be the heart and the hands. Hers also were the keen eyes that knew every weakness, every baseness, of the man to whom heart and hands must minister, but would see no more the battle and the triumph and the brilliance which set them sparkling and seemed to make the world alight for them.

For a little while the third thing, the remaining possibility, was unformulated in her thoughts; perhaps she had a scruple which made her turn away from it. But her speculations would not be denied their irresponsible freedom of ranging over all the field of chance. If it were true, if more than it, more than the kind timid woman had dared to say, were true, he might die. He might die, not in some dim far-off time when nature made the thing seem inevitable, when he had lived his life, been Prime Minister and so forth, and she had lived hers, filling it with work for him, and with looking on at him and with endurance of him, but sooner, much sooner, almost now, when he had not lived his life, while hers was not exhausted, when there would still be left to her another of her own to live after he was gone. It was strange to think of that, to see how what had seemed to be irrevocable and for ever, to stretch in unfaltering perpetuity to the limits of old age, might so easily, by the occasion of so small a matter as a heart not sound, turn out to be a passing thing, and there come to her again freedom, choice, a life to be re-made. If that happened, how would she feel? At the new-learnt chance of that happening, how did she feel? Very strange, very bewildered, very upset; that was her answer. Such a thing--Quisante's death she meant--would mean so much, change so much, take away so much--and might give so much. Her thoughts flew off to the new life that she might live then, to the new freedom from embarrassments, from fears and from disgusts, to a new love which it might be hers to gain and to enjoy. People said that it was always impossible to go back--_vestigia nulla_. But that event would open to her a sort of going back, such a return to her old life and her surroundings as might some day make the time she had spent with Quisante and its experiences seem but an episode, studding the belt of long days with one strange bizarre ornament.

And on the other side? There was the greatest difficulty, the greatest puzzle. She had not failed to understand the roughness of Aunt Maria's tones, her frightened eyes and the shaking of her hands. It would be very strange to see an end of him, to know that he would never be Prime Minister and so forth, to look on at a world devoid of him, to live a life in which he was only a memory. How were the scales to be held, which way did the balance incline? She could not tell, and at last she smiled at her inability to answer the riddle. It would amuse people so much, and shock some people so much and doubtless so properly, if they knew that she was sitting in her drawing-room in the afternoon, trying to make up her mind whether she would rather her husband lived or that he died. Even there the fallacy crept in; she was not desiring either way; she was simply looking at the two pictures which the two events painted for her fancy; and she did not know which picture she preferred. So all was still bewilderment, all still rocking from the sudden gust that had proceeded out of dear Lady Mildmay's gentle lips. But the undercurrent of wonder and of reproach that there had been in the warning May Quisante now almost missed. By an effort at last she realised its presence, the naturalness of it, and its rightness. But still it seemed to her a little conventional, something that might be supposed to be appropriate, but was not, if the truth were faced. "Alexander and I have never been like that to one another--at least never for more than a very little while," was the form her thought about it took.

When he came in that evening, she found herself looking at him with wonder, and with a sort of scepticism about what her visitor had said. He seemed so full of life; it was impossible to think of him as being likely, or even able, to die. But she had made up her mind to open the subject to him, to force something from him, and to learn about this visit to the doctor which he had so studiously concealed from her. She gave him tea, and was so far affected by her mood as to show unusual kindness towards him, or rather to let her uniform friendliness be tinged by an affection which was not part of her habitual bearing; with the help of this she hoped to lead up to a subject which her own strangely mixed meditations somehow made it hard for her to approach. But Quisante also had a scheme; he also was watching and working for an opportunity, and seeing one now in her great cordiality of manner he seized it with his rapid decisiveness, cutting in before his wife had time to develop her attack. He pressed her hand as she gave him his cup, sighed as though in weariness, took a paper from his pocket, and laid it on the table, giving it a tentative gentle push in the direction of her chair.

"We've got the Alethea afloat at last," he said. "There's the prospectus, if you care to look at it." With this he glanced at the clock, sighed again and added, "I must be at the House early this evening. By Jove, I'm tired though!" This little odd ineradicable trick of his made May smile; he was never so tired as when he had a risky card to play; then, indeed, he affected for his purposes some sort of reconcilability with those incongruous ideas of collapse and mortality that Lady Mildmay had suggested. He inspired May, as he did sometimes now, with a malicious wish to make him show himself at his trickiest. Fingering the prospectus carelessly, she asked,

"I suppose it sets out all the wonderful merits of the Alethea, doesn't it? Well, I've heard a good deal about them. I don't think I need read it."

"It gives a full account of the invention," said Quisante, wearily passing his hand across his brow.

"Have you put in Professor Maturin's report?" She was not looking at him, but smiling over to Mr. Foster on the mantelpiece. There was a moment's pause.

"The facts about Maturin are fully stated. You'll find it on the third page." He rose with a sigh and threw himself on the sofa; he groaned a little and shut his eyes. May glanced at him, smiled, and turned to the third page.

"In addition to the foregoing very authoritative opinions, steps were taken to obtain a report from the late Professor Maturin, F.R.S. Professor Maturin was very favourably impressed with several features of the invention, and was about to pursue his investigations with the aid of further information furnished to him, when he was unfortunately attacked by the illness of which he recently died. The Directors therefore regret to be unable to present any report of his examination. But they have every reason to believe that his opinion would have been no less encouraging than those of the other gentlemen consulted."

May turned back to the list of directors. Three out of the six she did not know; the other three were Quisante himself, Jimmy Benyon, and Sir Winterton Mildmay. The presence of these two last names filled May with a feeling of helplessness; this was worse than she had expected. Of course neither Jimmy nor Sir Winterton had heard anything about the Maturin report; of the other three she knew nothing and took no thought. Jimmy, not warned, alas, by that affair of old Foster's note, and Sir Winterton, in the chivalrous confidence of perfect trust, had given their support to Quisante. The use he made of their names was to attach them to a statement which she who knew of the Maturin report could describe only in one way. She looked round at her husband's pale face and closed eyes.

"I thought you were supposed to tell the--I mean, to state all the facts in a prospectus?" she said.

Quisante sat up suddenly, leant forward, and spread his hands out. "My dear May," he replied with a smile, "the facts are stated, stated very fully."

"There's nothing about the report the Professor did give. You remember you told me about it?"

"Oh, no, he gave no report."

"Well, you called it a draft report."

"No, no, did I? That was a careless way of speaking if I did. He certainly sent me some considerations which had occurred to him at the beginning of his inquiry, but they were based on insufficient information and were purely provisional. They did not in any sense constitute a report. It would have been positively misleading to speak of them in any such way." He was growing eager, animated, almost excited.

May was not inclined to cross-examine him; she knew that he would develop his case for himself if she sat and listened.

"The whole thing was so inchoate as to be worth nothing," he went on. "We simply discarded it from our minds; we didn't let it weigh one way or the other."

"The directors didn't?" That little question she could not resist asking.

"Oh, it was never laid before them. As I tell you, Mandeville and I decided that it could not be regarded as a report, or even as an indication of Maturin's opinion. We only referred to Maturin at all because--because we wanted to be absolutely candid."

May smiled; absolute candour resulted, as it seemed to her, in giving rise to an impression that the Professor had been in favour of the merits of the Alethea.

"And you won't show it to the directors?"

"No," said Quisante, "certainly not." He paused for a moment and then added slowly, "In fact it has not been preserved. What is stated there is based on my own personal discussions with the Professor, and on Mandeville's; the few lines he wrote added nothing."

It had not been preserved; it had sunk from a report to a draft report, from a draft report to considerations, from considerations to a few lines which added nothing; the minimising process, pursued a little further, had ended in a total disappearance. And nobody knew that it had ever existed, even as considerations, even as a few lines adding nothing, except her husband, cousin Mandeville, and herself.

"If the Professor himself," Quisante resumed, "had considered it of any moment, he would have kept a copy or some memorandum of it; but there was not a word about it among his papers."

There was safety, then, so far as the Professor was concerned; and so far as Quisante was concerned; of course, also, so far as cousin Mandeville was concerned. But Quisante's restless eyes seemed to ask whether there were perfect safety all round, no possibility of Jimmy or Sir Winterton or anybody else picking up false ideas from careless talk about the few lines in which the Professor had added nothing. For an instant May's eyes met his, and she understood what he asked of her. She was to hold her tongue; that sounded simple. She had held her tongue before, and thus it happened that Sir Winterton was her husband's friend and trusted him. Now she was again to be a party to deceiving him, and this time Jimmy Benyon was to be hoodwinked too. She was to hold her tongue; if by any chance need arose, she was to lie. That was the request Quisante made of her, part of the price of being Quisante's wife.

She gave him no pledge in words; a touch of the tact that taught him how to deal with difficult points prevented him from asking one of her. But it was quite understood between them; no reference was to be made to the few lines that the Professor had written. Quisante's uneasiness passed away, his headache seemed to become less severe; he was in good spirits as he made his preparations to go to the House. Apparently he had no consciousness of having asked anything great of her. He had been far more nervous and shamefaced about his betrayal of the Crusade, far more upset by the untoward incident of Mr. Foster's letter. May told herself that she understood why; he was getting accustomed to her and she to him; he knew her point of view and allowed for it, expecting a similar toleration in return. As she put it, they were getting equalised, approaching more nearly to one another's level. You could not aid in queer doings and reap the fruits of them without suffering some gradual subtle moral change which must end in making them seem less queer. As the years passed by, the longer their companionship lasted, the more their partnership demanded in its community of interest and effort, the more this process must go on. As they rose before the world--for rise they would (even the Alethea would succeed in spite of the Professor's burked report)--they would fall in their own hearts and in one another's eyes. This was the prospect that stretched before her, as she sat again alone in the drawing-room, after Quisante had set out, much better, greatly rested, in good spirits, serene and safe, and after she had pledged herself to his fortunes by the sacrifice of loyalty to friends and to truth.

Yes, that was the prospect unless--she started a little. She had forgotten what she had meant to ask him; she had not inquired about his visit to the doctor nor told him that kind Lady Mildmay was anxious about his health. It had all been driven out of her head, she said to herself in excuse at first. Then she faced her feelings more boldly. Just then she could have put no such questions, feigned no such interest, and assumed no show of affection or solicitude. That evening such things would have been mere hypocrisy, pretences of a desire to keep him for herself when her whole nature was in revolt at having to be near him. Her horror now was not that she might lose him, but of the prospect that lay before her and the road she must tread with him. Trodden it must be; unless by any chance there were truth, or less than the truth, in what good Lady Mildmay said. _

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