The man
was a villain. But what madness you were guilty of, what cruel madness!
Only you could have done a thing like that. Erris Boyne deserved death
--I care not who killed him--you or another. He deserved death, and it
was right he should die. But that you should kill him, apart from all
else--why, indeed, oh, indeed, it is a tragedy, for you loved my
daughter, and the killing made a gulf between you! There could be
no marriage in such a case. She could not bear it, nor could you. But
please know this, Mr. Calhoun, that she never believed you killed Erris
Boyne. She has said so again and again. You are the only man who has
ever touched her mind or her senses, though many have sought her.
Wherever she goes men try to win her, but she has no thought for any.
Her mind goes back to you. Just when you entered the garden I learned--
and only then-that you were here. She hid it from me, but Darius Boland
knew, and he had seen your man, Michael Clones, and she had then made him
tell me. I was incensed. I was her mother, and yet she had hid the
thing from me. I thought she came to this island for the sake of Salem,
and I found that she came not for Salem, but for you.
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