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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Altar of the Dead by Henry James: conceivable that even in moments of the tenderest expansion he
should have withheld. Of many facts in the career of a man so in
the eye of the world there was of course a common knowledge; but
this lady lived apart from public affairs, and the only time
perfectly clear to her would have been the time following the dawn
of her own drama. A man in her place would have "looked up" the
past - would even have consulted old newspapers. It remained
remarkable indeed that in her long contact with the partner of her
retrospect no accident had lighted a train; but there was no
arguing about that; the accident had in fact come: it had simply
been that security had prevailed. She had taken what Hague had
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