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Rh "Impossible!" exclaimed Sir Ambrose.

"I see no impossibility in the business," resumed the duke. "I think the case is clear. They did not know how to get off decently; and so Edric pretended to quarrel with you and me, to give the thing a face."

"I cannot fancy Edric guilty of such meanness," cried Sir Ambrose passionately.

"I don't think the matter admits of a single doubt. But what do you think on the subject, Father Morris?"

"Men devoted to austere professions like myself," replied the priest, without raising his eyes from the ground, "know but little of what is passing in the world. Thus, though my body be no longer shrouded in the gloom of a cloister, my mind remains still too much abstracted from the busy scenes around me, for me to be a competent judge of the effect of human passions."

"Och, then, ye are very right to say nothin' about them," cried Father Murphy; "for though I'm in a passion every day of my life, I nevher know what to say when I begin to talk