"You have seen my mother?"
"I have just come from her," he answered. "She bade me tell you what
ought to have been told long ago, and you were not, for there seemed no
reason that you should. You were young and ignorant and happy. You had
no cares, no sorrows. The sorrows that had come to your mother belonged
to days when you were scarce out of the cradle. But you did not know.
You were not aware that your mother had divorced your father for crime
against marital fidelity and great cruelty. You did not know even who
that father was. Well, I must tell you. Your father was a handsome man,
a friend of mine until I knew the truth about him, and then he died--I
killed him, so the court said."
Her face became ghastly pale. After a moment of anguished bewilderment,
she said: "You mean that Erris Boyne was my father?"
"Yes, I mean that. They say I killed him. They say that he was found
with no sword drawn, but that my open sword lay on the table beside me
while I was asleep, and that it had let out his life-blood."
"Why was he killed?" she asked, horror-stricken and with pale lips.
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