Do you find me mad now?"
"Madder than ever!"
"Ah, you don't take after your grandmother! Now listen to me. Do we run
the smallest risk, if Fanny finds it her interest to betray us? Suppose
we ask ourselves what she has really found out. She knows we have got a
sick man from a hospital coming here--does she know what we want him
for? Not she! Neither you nor I said a word on that subject. But she
also heard us agree that your wife was in our way. What does that
matter? Did she hear us say what it is that we don't want your wife to
discover? Not she, I tell you again! Very well, then--if Fanny acts as
Oxbye's nurse, shy as the young woman may be, she innocently associates
herself with the end that we have to gain by the Danish gentleman's
death! Oh, you needn't look alarmed! I mean his natural death by lung
disease--no crime, my noble friend! no crime!"
The Irish lord, sitting near the doctor, drew his chair back in a
hurry.
"If there's English blood in my family," he declared, "I'll tell you
what, Vimpany, there's devil's blood in yours!"
"Anything you like but Irish blood," the cool scoundrel rejoined.
As he made that insolent reply, Fanny came in again, with a sufficient
excuse for her reappearance.
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