"
"Why, to hear you speak, mistress, it would almost seem you had a
fondness for the man who killed your father, who went to jail for it,
and--"
"And became a mutineer," intervened the girl flushing. "Why not say all?
Why not catalogue his offences? Fondness for the man who killed my
father, you say! Yes, I had a deep and sincere fondness for him ever
since I met him at Playmore over seven years ago. Yes, a fondness which
only his crime makes impossible. But in all that really matters I am
still his friend. He did not know he was killing my father, who had no
claims upon me, none at all, except that through him I have life and
being; but it is enough to separate us for ever in the eyes of the world,
and in my eyes. Not morally, of course, but legally and actually. He
and I are as far apart as winter and summer; we are parted for ever and
ever and ever."
Now at last she was inflamed. Every nerve in her was alive. All she had
ever felt for Dyck Calhoun came rushing to the surface, demanding
recognition, reasserting itself. As she used the words, "ever and ever
and ever," it was like a Cordelia bidding farewell to Lear, her father,
for ever, for there was that in her voice which said: "It is final
separation, it is the judgment of Jehovah, and I must submit.
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