Then first I seemed to
understand a little. A dull flash went through me.
I stood up, drew back, and gazed at him. My eyes fixed themselves on his.
I stared into them. He had ceased to weep, and lay regarding me with calm
response.
"You don't mean, uncle,--?"
"Yes, little one, I do. That woman was the cause of the action for which
she threatens to denounce me as a murderer. I do not say she intended to
bring it about; but none the less was she the consciously wicked and
wilful cause of it.--And you will marry her son, and be her daughter!" he
added, with a groan as of one in unutterable despair.
I sprang back from him. My very proximity was a pollution to him while he
believed such a thing of me!
"Never, uncle, never!" I cried. "How can you think so ill of one who
loves you as I do! I will denounce _her!_ She will be hanged, and we
shall be at peace!"
"And John?" said my uncle.
"John must look after himself!" I answered fiercely. "Because he chooses
to have such a mother, am I to bring her a hair's-breadth nearer to my
uncle! Not for any man that ever was born! John must discard his mother,
or he and I are as we were! A mother! She is a hyena, a shark, a monster!
Uncle, she is a _devil!_--I don't care! It is true; and what is true is
the right thing to say. I will go to her, and tell her to her face what
she is!"
I turned and made for the door.
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