Rankin, the
missionary, the evening we met you. As to her death, you know--
you MUST know--that she died in her native country, years after
our last meeting. Perhaps you were too young to know that she
could hardly have expected to live long.
BRASSBOUND. You mean that she drank.
SIR HOWARD. I did not say so. I do not think she was always
accountable for what she did.
BRASSBOUND. Yes: she was mad too; and whether drink drove her to
madness or madness drove her to drink matters little. The
question is, who drove her to both?
SIR HOWARD. I presume the dishonest agent who seized her estate
did. I repeat, it was a hard case--a frightful injustice. But it
could not be remedied.
BRASSBOUND. You told her so. When she would not take that false
answer you drove her from your doors. When she exposed you in the
street and threatened to take with her own hands the redress the
law denied her, you had her imprisoned, and forced her to write
you an apology and leave the country to regain her liberty and
save herself from a lunatic asylum. And when she was gone, and
dead, and forgotten, you found for yourself the remedy you could
not find for her. You recovered the estate easily enough then,
robber and rascal that you are. Did he tell the missionary that,
Lady Cicely, eh?
LADY CICELY (sympathetically). Poor woman! (To Sir Howard)
Couldn't you have helped her, Howard?
SIR HOWARD. No. This man may be ignorant enough to suppose that
when I was a struggling barrister I could do everything I did
when I was Attorney General.
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