ISOBEL (smiling sadly). No.
WILLIAM. You say that this other man died—how many years ago?
ISOBEL. Sixty, seventy.
WILLIAM. Ah! (Sarcastically) And sixty years after he was dead he was apparently still writing poetry for Oliver Blayds to steal?
ISOBEL. He had already written it—sixty years ago—for Oliver Blayds to steal.
OLIVER. Good Lord! What a man!
SEPTIMA. You mean that his last volume——
WILLIAM (holding up his hand). Please, Septima.... Take this last volume published when he was over eighty. You say that everything there had been written by this other man sixty years ago?
ISOBEL. Yes.
[230]WILLIAM. And the manuscripts were kept by Oliver Blayds for sixty years, written out again by him and published in his old age as his own?