The change could take place, as
it seemed, only in one way and at one cost: the truth, or the
better part of it, must be told, and every tongue set wagging
with gossip and guesses concerning Rudolf Rassendyll and his
relations with the queen. Who that knows what men and women are
would not have shrunk from that alternative? To adopt it was to
expose the queen to all or nearly all the peril she had run by
the loss of the letter. We indeed assumed, influenced by Rudolf's
unhesitating self-confidence, that the letter would be won back,
and the mouth of Rupert of Hentzau shut; but enough would remain
to furnish material for eager talk and for conjectures
unrestrained by respect or charity. Therefore, alive as we were
to its difficulties and its unending risks, we yet conceived of
the thing as possible, had it in our hearts, and hinted it to one
another--my wife to me, I to Bernenstein, and he to me--in quick
glances and half uttered sentences that declared its presence
while shunning the open confession of it. For the queen herself I
cannot speak. Her thoughts, as I judged them, were bounded by the
longing to see Mr. Rassendyll again, and dwelt on the visit that
he promised as the horizon of hope.
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