'Yes, Dorcas, my beloved, my only darling, you will yet know all it has cost me to retain from you even this folly; and when you have heard all--which upon my soul and honour, you shall the moment I am enabled to _prove_ all--you will thank me for having braved your momentary displeasure, to spare you a great deal of useless and miserable suspense. I trust you, Dorcas, in everything implicitly. Why won't you credit what I say?' 'I don't urge you--I never have--to reveal that which you describe so strangely as a concealment, yet no secret; as an absurdity, and yet fraught with miserable suspense.' 'Ah, Dorcas, why will you misconstrue me? Why will you not believe me? I long to tell you this, which, after all, _is_ an _utter_ absurdity, a thousand times more than you can desire to hear it; but my doing so now, unfortified by the evidence I shall have in a very few days, would be attended with a danger which you will then understand. Won't you trust me?' 'And now for my advice,' said Dorcas, smiling down in her mysterious way upon a crimson exotic near her feet. 'Yes, darling, thank you. In sober earnest, your advice,' answered Lake; 'and you must advise me. Several of our neighbours--the Hillyards, the Ledwiches, the Wyndermeres, and ever so many more--have spoken to me very strongly about contesting the county, on the old Whig principles, at the election which is now imminent. There is not a man with a chance of acceptance to come forward, if I refuse. Now, you know what even moderate success in the House, when family and property go together, may accomplish. There are the Dodminsters. Do you think they would ever have got their title by any other means? There are the Forresters----' 'I know it all, Stanley; and at once I say, go on. I thought you must have formed some political project, Mr. Wealdon has been with you so often; but you tell me nothing, Stanley.' 'Not, darling, till I know it myself. This plan, for instance, until you spoke this moment, was but a question, and one which I could not submit until I had seen Wealdon, and heard how matters stood, and what chances of success I should really have. So, darling, you have it all; and I am so glad you advise me to go on. It is five-and-thirty years since anyone connected with Brandon came forward. But it will cost a great deal of money, Dorkie.' 'Yes, I know. I've always heard it cost my uncle and Sir William Camden fifteen thousand pounds.' 'Yes, it will be expensive, Wealdon thinks--_very_, this time. The other side will spend a great deal of money. It often struck me as a great mistake, that, where there is a good income, and a position to be maintained, there is not a little put by every year to meet cases like this--what they call a reserve fund in trading companies.' 'I do not think there is much money. _You_ know, Stanley.' 'Whatever there is, is under settlement, and we cannot apply it, Dorkie. The only thing to be done, it strikes me, is to sell a part of Five Oaks.'