WILLIAM (_as her meaning slowly comes to him_). Isobel, what are you saying? MARION. I don’t understand. Who was it? OLIVER. Good Lord! ISOBEL (_in the same quiet voice_). The friend was left—with the body of the poet—and all that great monument which the dead man had raised for himself. The poet had no friends but this one; no relations of whom he had ever spoken or who claimed him now. He was dead, and it was left to his friend to see that he won now that immortality for which he had given his life.... His friend betrayed him. SEPTIMA. I say! WILLIAM. I _won’t_ believe it! It’s monstrous! MARION. I don’t understand. ISOBEL (_wearily_). One can see the temptation. There he was, this young man of talent, of great ambition, and there were these works of genius lying at his feet, waiting to be picked up—and fathered by him. I suppose that, like every other temptation, it came suddenly. He writes out some of the verses, scribbled down anyhow by the poet in his mad hurry, and sends them to a publisher; one can imagine the publisher’s natural acceptance of the friend as the true author, the friend’s awkwardness in undeceiving him, and then his sudden determination to make the most of the opportunity given him.... Oh, one can imagine many things—but what remains? Always and always this. That Oliver Blayds was not a poet; that he did not write the works attributed to him; and that he betrayed his friend. (_She stops and then says in an ordinary matter-of-fact voice_) That was why I thought that he ought not to be buried in the Abbey. OLIVER. Good Lord! WILLIAM (_sharply_). Is this true, Isobel? ISOBEL. It isn’t the sort of story that I should make up. MARION. I don’t understand. (_To WILLIAM_) What is it? I don’t understand. WILLIAM. Isobel is telling us that Oliver Blayds stole all his poetry from another man. MARION. Stole it! WILLIAM. Passed it off as his own. MARION (_firmly to ISOBEL_). Oh no, dear, you must be wrong. Why should Grandfather want to steal anybody else’s poetry when he wrote so beautifully himself? SEPTIMA. That’s just the point, Mother. Aunt Isobel says that he didn’t write anything himself. MARION. But there are the books with his name on them! ISOBEL. Stolen—from his friend. MARION (_shocked_). Isobel, how can you? Your own father! WILLIAM. I don’t believe it. I had the privilege of knowing Oliver Blayds for nearly thirty years and I say that I don’t believe it. ISOBEL. I knew him for some time too. He was my father. WILLIAM. When did he tell you this? OLIVER. It’s a dashed funny thing that—— WILLIAM. If you will allow me, Oliver. I want to get to the bottom of this. When did he tell you? ISOBEL. That last evening. His birthday. WILLIAM. How? Why? Why should he tell you? ISOBEL. He seemed frightened suddenly—of dying. I suppose he’d always meant to tell somebody before he died. MARION. Why didn’t you tell us before, dear?