But she
lived in him and could think of him only as living, and through her he
could cheat himself into an assurance that indeed he could live and work.
Then Aunt Maria was very bad for him. That could not be denied, but
something more nearly touching herself pressed on May Quisante. She had
seen the Mildmays' painful puzzle; she had listened to Dr. Claud Manton's
energetic warning; it was before her, no less than before the patient,
that Sir Rufus had washed his hands. She was not ignorant of the
questions the world asked. She was not careless, nor was she any longer
the dupe of her old delusion that such a man as Quisante could not die.
Her eye for truth had conquered; now she believed that, if he persisted
in his rebellion, he must surely die; unless all medical knowledge went
for nothing, he would surely die, and die not after long years of
lingering, but soon, perhaps very soon. A moment of excitement, say one
of the moments that she had loved so much, might kill him; so Claud
Manton said. A life of excitement would surely and early do the work.
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