'Dear May, you, who know me better than the world, know well my heart is
not a mass of ice; and you, who are ever so ready to find a good reason
even for my most wilful conduct, and an excuse for my most irrational,
will easily credit that, in interfering in an affair in which you
are concerned, I am not influenced by an unworthy, an officious, or a
meddling spirit. No, dear May! it is because I think it better for you
that we should speak upon this subject that I have ventured to treat
upon it. Perhaps I broke it in a crude, but, credit me, not in an
unkind, spirit. I am well conscious I have a somewhat ungracious manner;
but you, who have pardoned it so often, will excuse it now. To be brief,
it is of your companion to that accursed fete that I would speak.'
'Mrs. Dallington?'
'Surely she. Avoid her, May. I do not like that woman. You know I seldom
speak at hazard; if I do not speak more distinctly now, it is because I
will never magnify suspicions into certainties, which we must do even if
we mention them. But I suspect, greatly suspect. An open rupture would
be disagreeable, would be unwarrantable, would be impolitic.
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