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Rh

Say whatever you please to me: I am humbled to the dust; my infirmity is crime.

Since you invite us to say whatever we please, I say that your crime has been punished already; for you have been oftener cheated and duped by your own supposed knowledge and your distrust of mankind, than the veriest flaxen-headed simpleton in the parish.

Hold, hold, Brightly; I will not succumb to thee so meekly. If you have any candour, you must acknowledge I had cause for suspicion. Any man would have been startled at the disappearance of that key after the mischievous urchin had been so strangely secreted in my library.

Yes, a very strong circumstance, indeed, to justify all this disturbance. Did not you give me a key to let myself out by the small gate of your shrubbery?

And what has that to do with it?

It would not open the shrubbery-gate, and I