"Yes. Priam Farll isn't really dead. It's his valet that's dead."

Whereupon she would burst out--

"But _you_ were his valet!"

Whereupon he would simply shake his head, and she would steam forwards--

"Then who are you?"

Whereupon he would say, as calmly as he could--

"I'm Priam Farll. I'll tell you precisely how it all happened."

Thus the talk might happen. Thus it would happen, immediately he began.
But, as at the Dean's door in Dean's Yard, so now, he could not begin.
He could not utter the necessary words aloud. Spoken aloud, they would
sound ridiculous, incredible, insane--and not even Mrs. Challice could
reasonably be expected to grasp their import, much less believe them.

"_There's been a mistake about the so-called death of Priam Farll._"

"_Yes, a hundred and forty thousand pounds._"

No, he could enunciate neither the one sentence nor the other. There are
some truths so bizarre that they make you feel self-conscious and guilty
before you have begun to state them; you state them apologetically; you
blush; you stammer; you have all the air of one who does not expect
belief; you look a fool; you feel a fool; and you bring disaster on