Part 15 (1/2)
”I've coht her breath
”No, no,” she said in a strained tone ”I cannot part with him It would kill me”
”It's ten years and more since I was here, and now I've come back to see you, perhaps at the risk of my neck, you--you shrink from me,” the man said, with cruelty in every line of his face and malice in his voice
The woman stood still and silent The last tis, but only when he threatened to take fro she cherished did she wince
”Who was the girl?” he asked, watching her colourless face and staring eyes fro withwith you? A plaything for the boy, eh?”
”No,” she said quickly ”No; he is not like that”
Again the hed
”There are different tales in the district,” he said ”I've been back long enough to learn that If he were different, I'd have hih to learn hi”
She shrank back a step, and the otten?” he said, with a return of the vindictive cruelty in his voice ”Do you think I'd leave his square? I've been away ten years--where, it's nothing to you; but it hasn't ht I'd come and see how the old place looked, and see whether you still were enjoying the affection of your son and keeping -place free”
”No one has touched it,” she answered quietly
”No; because you hadn't the pluck to destroy it Don't tell me you kept it because you prootten”
She did not answer as he paused, and he went on:
”The boy's got to co for him to do Then he and I----”
”No,” she said quickly; ”he shall not come”
He took a step forward, and seized her ar, powerful grip, grasping theers seee, he shook her to and fro, her slight for as a lath in his hands
”You tell o of her, and she sank to the ground
”I'd kill you if I didn't hate you too o back to the house When I aain; and when I come, I take hih the clu, half sitting, on the ground, where he had left her She felt her arripped; her head iiven her; her heart was palpitating with fear and eround, there came back to her the words she had said to Ailleen She had come to the place to think--and to pray!
The irony of it came to her in her helplessness andherself that, after an absence of ten years, she ht believe that the dark shadohich had so marred her life had passed away for ever; that, after a period of ten years'
silence, she was never to hear again the voice of the , to suffer whatever his ht dictate, to sub that he should co of all those hopes went on, leaving her tree that with one effort she could snap the influence that he had over her, could end for ever her thraldom to him It looked so easy, so simple, from her present position, and so awful To speak, to tell the world the great secret of her life, the maintenance of which had lain between her and the chasm she, in her timidity, dare not look towards, was to end this hold of terror, and, so it seemed to her, to shatter at the sa with all the instinct of her very existence--the affection of her son
That always appeared to her to be the price of her eh all the dark years of her blindness the solace had been in the love she gave to him, and in the ideal syarded her Soht what the effect would be if he ever learned the truth, and was half inclined to speak and end her enerous instincts, which were so manifest to her when he was absent; but when he ca in his voice anda contradiction to her faith, and yet which chilled her and e in the haven of the cowardly--procrastination
Now another ele for Ailleen The siirl had displayed in the trial which had fallen upon her, the unselfish putting aside of her own grief to soothe and ainst the uttering of the story which would destroy the overpowering de of the story would shatter, at one word, she thought, the confidence, the affection, and the kindliness of Ailleen