Who's we?" "My cousin and I,"
she answers. Sir Daniel thinks it odd that he has not heard of this
cousin before; but he continues his interrogatory without serious
suspicion. Then it occurs to him to look up, in a topographical
dictionary, the little town of Tawhampton, where Mrs. Dane spent her
youth. He reads the bald account of it, ending thus, "The living is a
Vicarage, net yearly value L376, and has been held since 1875 by"--and
he turns round upon her--"by the Rev. Francis Hindemarsh! Hindemarsh?"
Mrs. Dane: He was my uncle.
Sir Daniel: Your uncle?
Mrs. Dane: Sir Daniel, I've done wrong to hide from you that Felicia
Hindemarsh was my cousin.
Sir Daniel: Felicia Hindemarsh was your cousin!
Mrs. Dane: Can't you understand why I have hidden it? The whole
affair was so terrible.
And so she stumbles on, from one inevitable admission to another, until
the damning truth is clear that she herself is Felicia Hindemarsh, the
central, though not the most guilty, figure in a horrible scandal.
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