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Rh

[Thinking bitterly]

Madeline’s Gordon! Sam’s Gordon! the thanks I get for saving Sam at the sacrifice of my own happiness! I won’t have it! what do I care what happens to Sam now? I hate him! I’ll tell him Gordon isn’t his child! and threaten to tell Gordon too, unless! he’ll be in deadly fear of that! he’ll soon find some excuse to break their engagement! he can! he has the strangest influence over Gordon! but Ned must back me up or Sam won’t believe me! Ned must tell him too! but will Ned? he’ll be afraid of the insanity! I must make him believe Sam’s in no danger

[Intensely]

Listen, Ned, I’m absolutely sure, from things she wrote me before she died, that Sam’s mother must have been deliberately lying to me about the insanity that time. She was jealous because Sam loved me and she simply wanted to be revenged, I’m sure.

[Without lowering glasses—dryly]

No. She told you the truth. I never mentioned it, but I went up there once and made a thorough investigation of his family.

[With resentful disappointment]

Oh—I suppose you wanted to make sure so you could hope he’d go insane?