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pot any longer--we don't want any of them!" said the Rector, dismissing the Fox-Wilton family with an emphatic gesture which probably represented what he had gone through in the interview with Edith. ... "In that way the thing will soon die down. There will be nobody here--nobody within reach--for the scoundrel who is writing these letters to attack--except, of course, myself--and I shall know how to deal with it. He will probably tire of the amusement. Other people will be ashamed of having read the letters and believed them. I even dare to hope that Mr. Barron--in time--may be ashamed."
Alice looked at him in tremulous despair.
"Nobody to attack!" she said--"nobody to attack! And you, Richard--_you_?"
A dry smile flickered on his face.
"Leave that to me--I assure you you may leave it to me."
"Richard!" said Alice imploringly--"just think. I know what you say is very important--very true. But for me personally"--she looked round the room with wandering eyes; then found a sudden passionate gesture, pressing back the hair from her brow with both hands--"for me personally--to tell the truth--to face the truth--would be relief--infinite relief! It would kill the fear in which I have lived all these years--kill it forever. It would be better for all of us if we had told the truth--from the beginning. And as for Hester--she must know--you say yourself she must know before long--when she is of age--when she marries--"
Meynell's face took an unconscious hardness.
"Forgive me!--the matter must be left to me. The only person who could reasonably take legal action would be myself--and I shall not take it. I beg you, be advised by me." He bent forward again. "My dear friend!"--and now he spoke with emotion--"in your generous consideration for me you do not know what you are proposing--what an action in the courts would mean, especially at this moment. Think of the party spirit that would be brought into it--the venom--the prejudice--the base insinuations. No!--believe me--tha