"Society is given to that kind of suspicion; and the lady's death occurred in an agitating time, when the minds of men were full of Jesuit plots, supposititious babies, poison, and treason. I have read some curious paragraphs in the newspapers of that year, in which the suspicious circumstances of Mrs. Topsparkle's death were hinted at, together with various insinuations and innuendoes questioning the lady's character, and suggesting that she had no legal claim to the name of Topsparkle. But it was only when Topsparkle ventured to stand for Brentford as a high Tory in the beginning of William's reign that the Whig pamphleteers and lampooners let fly their venomed arrows. Then it was broadly stated that Mr. Topsparkle had run away with an Italian dancing-girl--she was no longer a singer, you will mark: that would have been too reputable. He had stolen her out of a booth where she was Columbine to an itinerant Harlequin; he had brought her to London, shut her up in his house in Soho Square, surprised her treachery with a gentleman of good birth and superior personal attractions, best known to society for former favours bestowed upon him by her Grace of Cleveland, and had made away with her, whether by bowstring or poisoned bowl the lampooners averred not, but bills setting forth this scandal were freely distributed in Brentford. Mr. Topsparkle was challenged with his guilt on the hustings, and narrowly escaped being mauled by the mob. It was altogether a very ugly experience in the way of electioneering adventures, and you can hardly wonder that Topsparkle's ardour for parliamentary fame cooled from that hour." "Did he do nothing to refute this slander?" asked Durnford. "A great deal--and too little. He laid a criminal information against the least cautious of his libellers, and got him put in the pillory; but public feeling was altogether against the libelled gentleman, and the pillory was as a bower of roses to the venal scribbler, who doubtless had written just what he was told to write by Topsparkle's political opponent. Perhaps, had Topsparkle stayed in England and held his own boldly, the scandal would have passed as the mere scum of the political cauldron; but as he sneaked off to the Continent almost immediately afterwards, under pretence of offering his allegiance to the Royal Exile, most people were of opinion that the story was not altogether a baseless fabrication, and, taken in conjunction with the rest of Mr. Topsparkle's experiences and his personal character, the suspected tragedy put the finishing touch to a ripening reputation, and kept him out of the way of his fellow-countrymen for over thirty years." "I should be slow to believe a slander so circulated, and resting on such slight foundations," said Lavendale gravely.